Tips, Tricks and Techniques Tuesday - Changing Leaves

Hello, today I now know that Autumn is on it's way again already, sadly! My rose tree in the front garden has finished flowering and the leaves are beginning to change again too. However, my Magnolias are starting to flower again!! Figure that if you can as I can't! Anyway using the Changing Leaves stamp set again today I have made a card where I stamped all of the leaves onto the white background. 

I then stamped them again several times and fussy cut them out and raised them onto the previously stamped mat. The only one that I didn't re-stamp was the large leaf. Fortunately that is in the centre and ready for the sentiment which is in position perfectly. All of the additional leaves were raised up using Dimensionals to give some height to the card. 

I used Granny Apple Green for the large leaf in the middle, Lemon Lime Twist for the smaller leaf and Lost Lagoon for the 3 finger leaf. I love the way they go together so well.

Watercolour Wednesday - Crafting With You

 Hello on another wet Wednesday. Using the lovely stamp set Crafting With You today, I have gone back to school so to speak! My uniform when at school was exactly the colours I have used here... Black Skirt, Yellow blouse and black or white socks! This was purely by accident until I had finished the card I hadn't realised what I'd done! I think it was the board and easel stand that I suddenly saw my uniform again! Anyway, a semi simple watercolour today. I started by stamping the board and easel onto a plain white mat and then with some cut offs of watercolour paper that I had, I laid them out in the order you see and stamped the image again. It worked!! I used the watercolour from the block technique as it works really well so it was just a case of adding the colour to the flowers and leaves and it was complete. I used Stazon Jet Black Ink for the easel but it looks red here??? How odd! 

Apologies for the wrong pictures to start off with. Here are the correct ones!

Watercolour Wednesday - Botanical Beauty

 Hello and thank you for stopping by. Today, using the gorgeous stamp set Botanical Beauty, I really went to watercolour heaven! I stamped the image in Lemon Lolly, one of the last years new colours. It is soft and subtle but can be bright too. I lightly stamped it onto White card and then I started with many of the green inks from Stampin' Up! I used  Shaded Spruce, Granny Apple Green, Pretty Peacock and a touch of Old Olive. I stamped an acrylic block onto the ink pad and using my fine water brush, started to colour in the leaves and ferns in different ways. I repeated this with all of the colours until I was happy with the depth of each colour. I went on to cut the white stamped mat down to 9.4 cm I left the width at 10.5 cm. 

I then chopped it up randomly from top to bottom at different angles. I added the pieces onto a mat of the Lemon Lolly card. Once the last piece was ready to go I was able to trim the width down to fit my card base. I adhered the mat to a black mat a few mm larger than the yellow which I think has made the colours stand out so well. I mounted it using Dimensionals on the back and added a piece of yellow ribbon from the Sheer Ribbon Combo pack. 3 gorgeous colours in the pack, Lemon Lolly, pink of Bubble Bath  and the bright blue of Azure Afternoon. A sentiment inside and a few extra leaves etc. and I was finished.

Make It Simple Monday - Botanical Beauty

 Hello and thank you for stopping by to see my cards this week. I will be using Botanical Beauty stamp set this week in particular but I will be coordinating it with Botanical Layers and Berry Harvest...possibly! The Botanical Beauty and Berry Harvest are what are called Background stamps and they do make excellent backgrounds too. However, with a little addition they can adopt a different look too which is what I aim to show you this week. 🤞🤞🤞

Today's card is a simplestamping card of course. One ideally suited for the new to stamping, or beginner crafter. It's perfect as all it needs once stamped is a sentiment. Yes, I did add a few extra layers flat onot the previous card layer and then some of the little cut outs from another stamped image. They were stuck to the back of the sentiment. which came from the Botanical Layers stamp set.

Technique Tuesday - Cheerful Daisies

 Continuing on with the simplestamping theme, but using a technique that I like using. By adding a piece of patterned paper to a card base and adding images or sentiments on top, you can make a very simple but pretty card. Using the Cheerful Daisies stamp set I stamped the sentiment and on a plain C6 mat I stamped another and some small flowers. I took the dies of the same name which go with the stamp set and die cut the large die which is the 3 daisies all attached together plus the inner parts of the daisies and die cut them all out in white card. Once cut out, I used a blending brush and gently brushed Balmy Blue ink across the inner parts of the 3 daisies. I left the main body white. I added some Tombow multipurpose glue to the back of the centres and placed them on top. I added the sentiments and completed the card.

Technique Tuesday - Dainty Delight

 Hello again and thank you for stopping by. Today's card is another simple one with a little blending and heat embossing. I started with a strip of card and using Versamark Ink pad, I stamped 3 of the stamps from the set Dainty Delight and poured White Embossing Powder over. Once I had removed the excess powder, I heat set it. Using my blending brushes, I brushed the NEW ink called Lemon Lolly over the top third. Then Fresh Freesia on the centre third. Fresh Freesia is now a permanent fixture in the catalogue. It was an In Colour for the last 2 years but it is now staying. Then last but not least, I used Granny Apple Green ink and brushed it over the bottom third. That's it really except for the Fresh Freesia card base which I embossed using the Fern fry embossing folder.

Technique Tuesday - Legendary Ride

 Today I really had a very fun time making this one. Only 2 colours and black ink and it was completed very quickly. Using the stamp set, Legendary Ride and Memento Ink Pad, I stamped the sentiment across the centre of a piece of white card. I did use my Stamparatus for this one as it has the hinges on the plates which you can move along. That's what I did. I placed the mat onto the platform and added the flame stamp on the edge of the white card mat. I placed the plate down on top of the stamp, picked it up and then started inking with the Mango Melody. I repeated the same with the other side. Once the Mango Melody was completed, I moved the stamp a little to be in-between the yellow flames and then started to stamp using Granny Apple Green. 

That was it. Very quick and very simple. 

Technique Tuesday - Decorative Borders

 Today's card is similar to yesterday's in as much that I created a background onto a mat using a few of the stamps from the Decorative Borders stamp set. Today's was about making a very simple card using a very simple technique of masking the centre of the card then stamping around the sides. I took a piece of White Crinkled Seam-Binding and using a Stampin' Write Marker pen, I drew all along the length covering it with the same bright green ink of Granny Apple Green. That's another fantastic thing that can be done with the Stampin' Up! ribbons, they can be coloured with the marker pens or Blends pens too. If you don't have the right coloured ribbon for your project, take some of the white and colour it! Adding the sentiments on the inside mat and the front then both mats were stepped onto the ink pad to show the borders. 

 

Technique Tuesday - Apple Harvest

Well, the heat is still here and we,ve been forecast for the first time ever, an amber alert for excessive heat on Sunday coming. That is the possibilty of us coping with 40 degrees of sun and heat! WOW!! It's going to be hot! Today's project is one that I often use but with a twist. Using the Apple Harvest stamp set, I used a cello bag and added a few drops of each of the 3 different colours ink refills. I used a gorgeous fresh and bright green of Granny Apple Green, a really bright red of Poppy Parade and a rich, unctuous yellow of Mango Melody. Then I spritzed the ink and cello bag with lots of cold water. I laid the C6 white mat onto the inks and left it there for a few minutes while it soaked the colour up.

Once it was dry and I had cleaned up, I stamped the apples several times all over the mat. Just for a change, my next move was fussy cutting them all out! I embossed a soft blue mat in Balmy Blue card and also a scrap of white card using the lovely Thanks and Hello embossing folder duo set. I embossed the Thanks folder on both and with the white, I gently dragged the ink pad in Balmy Blue across it in different directions just to colour the word Thanks only. Then I fussy cut all around it.

Throwback Thursday - Whale Done

 My Throwback Thursday card this week is one that I like to often do. I started with a plain basic white mat and started with stamping the plants from Whale Done across the lower part before I die cut the oval from the centre. I added another mat of the same size beneath the card and embossed the 2 at the same time using the lovely Seashells embossing folder. Using some plain paper, I stamped several more of the plants in different colours and then fussy cut them out. I did the same with the whale, jelly fish and turtle. I adhered the plants and used Dimensionals between the 2 layers and for the creatures too. Although there seems to be lots on the card, it was a very quick card to make. Surprisingly!

 

Watercolour Wednesday - Love of Leaves

Hello for this lovely to be a very wet Wednesday! Very apt really as this is Watercolour Wednesday! My card this week is another very simple card. Not true to watercolouring in the normal sense but still lots of water was involved! Using the largest leaf (I think it is supposed to be a Field Maple) from Love of Leaves stamp set, today I inked up the stamp in lots of ink and then using my spritzer, soaked it with water. Once done, I stamped it straight onto the white mat that I had beside my work. Now I hadn't planned on the next thing that happened but I'm so pleased it did. As I spritzed the stamp with the ink on, the ink sprayed onto the white mat! I repeated the inking and spritzing with all of the colours.

I used, Pacific Point (bright blue), Gorgeous Grape (strong purple), Melon Mambo (bright pink), Granny Apple Green (bright green) and Mango Melody (bright yellowish/orange). I wouldn't normally put all of those bright colours together but it just seemed the right thing to do for this card. The spritzing of the colour all over the card I'm really pleased with as it turned out, lucky me! 😀

It took a while to dry so I went away for about an hour and when I came back I loved the way the lines of colour had spread over the sides of the images and how the spots really look so cool! I love it! Ok, so once it was dry, I decided to chop it into rectangles or gutted the mat several times. By cutting the inside at 1.5cm inside the outer edges I was left with a frame. I continued to do this twice more and the last one was just left as it is. Adding these rectangle frames onto a piece of the bright coloured card and trimmed all round before mounting each layer using Dimensionals or foam adhesive shapes. Another simple sentiment inside and out by colouring each of the letters using a Stampin' Write Marker pen in the exact colours.

 

Make It Simple Monday - Love of Leaves

 Well!!! This last 2 weeks has been a real whirlwind and I think I am just beginning to come back down to earth again! Last Monday was a milestone birthday for me but the Saturday and Sunday before was our annual Retreat for the 1st time since the Covid pandemic hit us all. Unknown to me, on the Saturday evening everyone had got together and arranged a surprise birthday party for me too! So having had a break after such a busy time, this week I am pushing myself to use a stamp set that I love but have never used. AT ALL!! Love of Leaves has a coordinating set of dies which are called Stitched Leaves Dies. These are what I am working with this week. 

There are 5 different leaf stamps in the set along with a number of sentiments. Using only the one leaf stamp, I stamped into the centre of a white mat with Granny Apple Green Ink Pad. I stamped another leaf onto a post it note and cut around it. If you place another of the images over the first image, it will protect the first one and show the rest to the sides. I did this 4 times and got the leaves all together. 

If I use the same colour as I have in the white on white, I like to show the edge of the mat with the matching ink pad. Just by stepping the edges onto the pad and picking up a smidge of ink all the way around makes it pop on the card. A simple Thank You on a small scrap of white card and then it was fixed to the card front to complete this one. 

Throwback Thursday - Tulip Fields

For today's card I sort of cheated a little. On Tuesday I made an A4 sheet One Sheet Wonder using the Tulip Fields stamp set and used only a quarter of it. Today I used it again but this time I cut it into lots of rectangles and then mounted each of those on a piece of gorgeous green card which is Granny Apple Green. My new favourite green. 

Sounds too easy? It really is. I started with a mat of 10cm by 14.4cm  and 'gutted'/cut it at 1.5cm all the way around on the inside of the rectangle. I did this twice and then gutted at 1cm for the last 2 pieces. Once I had glued the white pieces to the green, I cut them all leaving a small border and then mounted them onto the card base using foam pads, Dimensionals. Using the Stampin' Up! Trimmer it's very easy to do the gutting process. It is particularly useful if you are sending a card with lots of layers as you can gut each of the lower layers to take some of the weight off. 

 I then stamped the Windmill onto scrap paper and did a little watercolouring before fussy cutting it out. Another sentiment from the Special Moments Saleabration stamp set inside and out finished this one off. The first picture shows the whole sheet of A4 card before I started to chop it up. I still have half a sheet left for more cards.