Papertrey Ink October 2018 Create Along With Us

Hello everyone!  I am getting to spend a lot of time in the studio this week so I have a card for this month's Create Along With Us as Papertrey Ink.  We're supposed to use something that inspired us as the starting place for our project.  In my case, Everything inspired me so I decided to make a few Christmas cards using a method that I haven't used in a while.

When I first started making cards, I was not a very good stamper and so I made cards using mostly die cuts with card stock.  Along came the Misti and now I'm a pretty great stamper but sometimes I just don't want to do any stamping.  Half the purpose of great dies is being able to make quick cards in a short amount of time and so I used a method I like to call Double Metallics.

For my project for today, I wanted to use the beautiful Bold Borders: Yuletide Cover Die designed by Lizzie Jones and just let it take me wherever I wanted to go.  As often happens, I had gold foiled cardstock on my table where my die cutting machine sits.  I also have a selection of other metallic cardstock and foiled prints in my supplies.  I am a "metallic" lover.  This never rang truer than when I was selecting colors for our new house.  The colors that I chose seem to all have something metallic in the name; Samovar Silver, Stainless, Pewter, Platinum, Brushed Nickel and so on.  The only thing that was a normal color name is all our white trim.  I'm pretty sure this reverts back to my days of working in a jewelry store.  I like all metals and if you pop a little color in there, well that is just the icing on the cake for me.

I pulled a sheet of Gold Foiled Cardstock, die cut it with the die and pulled a foiled print that I like with only a few pieces left and looked at them together.  You know that I have foiled cardstock in my stash because I'm just a shiny, sparkly, blingy kind of girl that way!  I liked it, but I knew I would have to tie all the elements together for it to work.

I created a card base from Scarlet Jewel Cardstock.  I also die cut the center rectangle from Scarlet Jewel to inlay for the center panel.  I cut a piece of the foiled paper just slightly smaller than the die to 4 1/8th  by 5 3/8ths. It works best when you are adhering the gold foiled piece if it is not quite as large then You don't have to worry about any wonky edges popping out where you don't want them. I also used some of the gold foiled cardstock to die cut some Holly Leaves from Pretty Pink Posh to match the stitched leaves in Lizzie's design.  I actually made two similar cards but the other one has Holly leaves die cut from the patterned paper instead of the gold.  I love both of them. For the Holly Berries, I used Red Satin Finished Sequins with a jewel in the center of them.  Honestly, that bit takes the longest in putting the cards together.  You have to pick up each little sequin and each little jewel and glue them together and it can get tedious but I love the end result, so I think it is worth the time it takes.

There will be lots of beautiful projects along the hop, so I hope you'll stop by to see everyone's projects and leave them a little love in the form of a comment.

Affiliate Links Used Whenever Possible

Cuttlebug Die Cutting Machine Shop at: SSS	Kokuyo Long Dot Runner Adhesive Shop at: SSS	Marvy Jewel Picker Shop at: SSS	PPP Festive Holly Die Shop at: SSS
PTI Bold Borders: Yuletide Shop at: PTI	PTI Scarlet Jewel Cardstock Shop at: PTI	Ranger Multi Medium Matte Shop at: SSS	Teflon Bone Folder Shop at: SSS
Tim Holtz Tonic Paper Trimmer Shop at: SSS	Tonic 6 Inch Personal Trimmer Shop at: SSS

Keeping Christmas

Hello everyone!  Thank you so much for stopping by today to check out the Keeping Christmas Blog Hop that we hold on the 25th of each month, January through November.  Part of the purpose of this is to show you that you can send all handmade greeting cards at Christmas by doing a few at a time all through the year.  We try to include tips and tricks to help you get it done.

The cards I made today, I wanted to do a clean and simple card featuring an iconic image that we naturally associate with Christmas - holly leaves. I have a stamp set that contains holly images, and I even have a few different holly dies that I could have used.  But I wanted that little pop of color that comes from stamping and I wanted an image large enough to work well with the size of my sentiment "Season's Greetings".

I chose the sentiment from the Simon Says Stamp Big Scripty Greetings Stamp Set but because I wanted to add some additional color and shading to my holly sprig, I stamped that first.  I used the Simon Says Stamp Poinsettia Stamp set from a year or two ago to create my holly leaves.  I started with 8 panels of 4.25 x 5.5 inch Stamper's Select White Cardstock.  Using my Mini MISTI , I lined up the two poinsettia leaves to look like holly and then stamped them down.

For the first set of 4 cards with the Fresh Asparagus Coordinating Cardstock, I used New Leaf and Pine Feather Inks from Papertrey Ink.  I stamped with the New Leaf first and then using a Mini Ink Blending Tool, I added some of the darker color to the base of the leaves.  This took literally a few seconds but added a lot of depth to the leaves.

For the second set of 4 cards, I stamped with Altenew's new Green Meadows family of inks using Just Green and Hunter Green for the added depth.  That Just Green is a gorgeous "Kelly" green and one that I will use a lot. Once I had the "holly" leaves stamped, I took all 8 panels and die cut them with the largest Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles Die. I also cut 8 backgrounds, 4 in Gina K Designs Cherry Red and 4 in Gina K Designs Fresh Asparagus using the largest die from the WPLUS9 Gift Card Layers Die Set.  I actually really love both these Gina K colors and I have the inks, but they weren't handy, so I used what was handy.

Next I placed my sentiment how I wanted it on my card front, then I picked it up with the MISTI door and stamped each panel with Versamark and heat set it with Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I stamp, then sprinkle with powder, stamp, sprinkle with powder etc. and then heat set at the end of each 4 panels.  I let my heat tool warm up while I am doing the stamping and sprinkling.  If I try to do more than that, then I end up laying something where it shouldn't be and mess it up so I just do 4 at a time. You could also use black ink if that is the style you like.  If you want the shine of heat embossing you can always use clear powder.

At this point I wanted just a touch of bling so I used my Wink of Stella Clear Shimmer Pen to go over the leaves and started adding some Nuvo Drops but I could tell instantly that my three dots of Nuvo drops was going to turn into one big goopy mess, so I stopped and got my Red Satin Sequins out instead. I adhered them with Ranger Multi Medium Matte.  To get the little bit of Nuvo Drops off, I just scraped it with the tip of my tweezers and put a sequin over the top.  I did it so quickly that no one will ever know which card it was unless they are inspecting it. I'm not sure where I got these sequins with the Satin Finish, but for some reason I really like these red ones and have used them several times with holly leaves as my berries.

There are a few ways you can break this card into small pieces to make several at once.  When I started, I wasn't sure how much uninterrupted time I would have so I figured out my design first and pulled out the supplies I needed - stamps and dies.  Then I cut my cardstock down into panels in all three colors I was planning to use.  Next I scored and folded all my card bases.  Once I had that done, I set up my card front in my MISTI tool and grabbed the inks I was planning to use.

I keep the 2 brands of ink cubes that I use most in a tall 7 drawer jewelry chest just to my left on my desk that I got from US Acrylics on Amazon.  You can see it here.  This has been a fantastic find for me although it isn't currently available on Amazon.  I have tried several drawer units but none of them are nearly as well made as the US Acrylics brand.  I wanted to get another of these for a cosmetic storage solution in our bath, but they never did come back in stock so I got two of this one from US Acrylics and stacked them.  I put thick rubber feet on the bottoms so it won't scratch my vanity and it won't slide around and fall down.  I can fit almost everything in the two units (not my tall bottle of foundation or larger eye shadow palettes) and this has worked as a solution.  My husband is a lot happier because I don't have my stuff laying all over his side and mine of the vanity.  I wish I would have tried it sooner.  Anyhow....

I find it much easier to handle ink cubes with my MISTI Tool and I have mostly not gotten larger ink pads.  If I have any, it is because they came in a kit or something like that. In fact, I wasn't planning to get any brands outside of the ones I had but I have acquired a few different brands via a kit purchase.  It's definitely fun to see how other inks work so I do test them usually.  When I try to use the larger pads, I often drop them right onto my project which just frustrates me.  I don't seem to have this problem with the smaller size.

After I had my panels stamped, I did all of my die cutting at one time including the background panels.  Then I did that 2nd stage of stamping (for heat embossing) and when I finished that, I only had assembly left to do.  It took less than an hour to create these eight cards and I think any kind of card can be made by doing each little piece of it in stages as time allows.  I know it is much less stressful when the holidays come if I have a nice supply of cards to send out. It makes me think of a saying that a teacher used back in grade school, "Inch by inch, it's a cinch."

It's always great if you can take a look at your stamps and see that you can make something completely different than was intended and get a little extra mileage out of them.  In this case they are intended to be poinsettia leaves but they worked perfectly as holly leaves.  You

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Be sure to check out all the stops along the hop to get even more ideas for building a stash of Holiday Cards.

Kelly Lunceford

Lesley Croghan

Anita Madden

Broni Holcombe

Claire Broadwater

Julee Tilman

Kim Heggins

Lori Tecler

Nance Salkeld

Nina Forsyth

Vicki Finger (You are here)

The supplies I've used are linked below for your convenience (Affiliate Links may be used).

Altenew Green Meadows Collection Shop at: ALT	Cuttlebug Shop at: SSS	GKD Cherry Red Cardstock Shop at: GKD	GKD Fresh Asparagus Cardstock Shop at: GKD
Kokuyo Long Dot Runner Adhesive Shop at: SSS	PTI Perfect Match New Leaf Ink Shop at: PTI	PTI Perfect Match Pinefeather Ink Shop at: PTI	PTI Stamper's Select White Cardstock Shop at: PTI
Ranger Multi Medium Matte Shop at: SSS	SSS Antique Gold Embossing Powder Shop at: SSS	SSS Big Scripty Greetings Stamp Set Shop at: SSS	SSS Poinsettia Stamp Set Shop at: SSS
SSS Stitched Rectangles Dies Shop at: SSS	Teflon Bone Folder Shop at: SSS	Tim Holtz Mini Round Ink Blending Tool Shop at: SSS	Tonic 6 Inch Personal Trimmer Shop at: SSS
Versamark Ink Shop at: PTI | SSS	Wagner Heat Tool Shop at: SSS	Wink of Stella Shimmer Pen Shop at: SSS	WPLUS9 Gift Card Layers Designer Dies Shop at: SSS

Inspired By All The Little Things #74

Today's card is for the Inspired by All The Little Things Challenge. I wanted to create a card that was less fussy and more graphic feeling to fit in with the challenge. I like this sort of card for sending to some of the men in my life in particular, although I know some women who have a definite preference for clean graphics as well. I never feel like I do a very good impression of shabby chic but I do try once in a while.  Some people (Melissa Phillips comes to mind) can do that look so very well and I'm always inspired by the use of so many colors, layers and textures.

There are a lot of fun challenges going on right now for the holiday season and I am having a lot of fun playing in as many of them as I possibly can. But, as you know, I like to give you some general tips and guidelines for how I created my card.

I started by choosing a wood grain paper for my large star.  It's okay to change the shape of that element, but I didn't need to. I have several sheets of this and if you don't like the color it comes in, you can change it up easily by coloring over the top with a Copic Marker.  In this case I used a Black (100) Copic Marker to deepen the color.  It doesn't show up that well in the photos, but you can easily see the wood grain pattern when looking at the card in person.  I also created a card base from Soft Stone Cardstock.  I wanted a slight pattern for the main background panel and I chose this repeating text background paper.  It's hard to tell in the photo, but the text is done in green on a pale ivory paper.  To highlight that green, I also created a narrow mat behind it from Pinefeather Cardstock.

My wood grain paper is a text weight paper so in order to make it a somewhat more substantial weight, I cut three stars from True Black Cardstock and glued them one of top of the other.  I used my powder tool on the wood grain star and placed the negative into my MISTI to hold the positive in place in case I needed to stamp it again (which I did). I stamped the Merry & Bright sentiment from the Gina K Designs Merry & Bright Stamp TV Kit in Versamark and heat set it with my favorite Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder, twice. I love this technique so much!  It makes such a difference in how bold your sentiment is. I did a light mist of Tsukineko Sheer Shimmer Spritz over just the star and when it was dry I adhered it with some Scotch 3D Foam Tape to my card front.  For the lower part of the greeting, I die cut the "holiday" word from Gold Foil Cardstock, and the "Greetings" banner from Concord & 9th's Season of Cheer Die.  All together, the sentiment says "Merry & Bright Holiday Greetings".  It's festive yet crisp and graphic.

Most of my Christmas Cards have already been sent out but I will still do a few more for things as they come up. There's always a few I don't think of when doing my initial list.

Thank you so much for stopping by today to see my project.  For your convenience, the supplies I've used are linked below.

Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder Shop at: SSS	Kokuyo Long Dot Runner Adhesive Shop at: SSS	Gina K Designs Stamp TV Kit - Merry & Bright Shop at: GKD	Versamark Ink Shop at: PTI | SSS
Concord & 9th Season of Cheer Dies Shop at: SSS | C+9	Cuttlebug Die Cutting Machine Shop at: SSS	Papertrey Ink Pinefeather Cardstock Shop at: PTI	Papertrey Ink Soft Stone Cardstock Shop at: PTI
Papertrey Ink True Black Cardstock Shop at: PTI