Still Stamping

Who Can Resist Watercolor?

Bad pun, I know.  The technique I've used on today's card is a resist technique with Watercolor Wonder Crayons.  When I saw Sandi MacIver's dragonfly card, I had to know how she did it.  I had to make some changes (as usual) to suit the materials and stamps I have instead of the ones she used on the original.  But I am very happy with the results, and I hope you'll love it, too.

I took lots of pictures of this card, because there are many very pretty areas on the focal image I wanted to show off.  Pictures speak louder than words, right?  So without further ado, here are the others.

Card Stock Colors: Taken With Teal, Elegant Eggplant, Perfect Plum. 

 
  
 

Click on any image to see it full-size.

Come back and see me really soon!

Carol Taggart
 

A Non-Ornament from the Ornament Punch

  As promised yesterday, I want to show you a card using the Ornament punch from the Holiday Mini Catalog and the altered Finial Press embossing folder for the Big Shot.  Both are exclusive Stampin' Up! products and available now.  You can order by calling or emailing me, or you can visit my website and place your order there. 

I'm sure you recognize the punched image - instead of a Christmas ornament, it is the vase for these tiny flowers.

Stamp Set: Stem Silhouettes

Colors: Rich Razzleberry, Mellow Moss, Old Olive, Pale Plum, Shimmery White.

Big Shot, Finial Press embossing folder (altered), Ornament punch, Ovals die, Word Window punch, Modern Label punch, dimensionals, sponge dauber
 

Deck the Halls With Delightful Decorations

 I've been working hard stamping and creating for the holidays, and I apologize for neglecting my blog again.  It's not that I don't have anything to share...quite the contrary!  So I'm going to start bombarding you with my cards, gifts, decorations, and such.... be prepared!

Let's start with a card from a recent Stamp-a-Stack I taught at my house here in Hanover, PA.  I love the new Ornament punch and coordinating stamp set,  Delightful Decorations
 And if you have those, of course you'll want to have the coordinating Holiday Windows dies for your Movers & Shapers!  All are in the Holiday Mini Catalog and available for a limited time only.

Today's offering uses the punch and the die todgether, but the real WOW of this card comes from the embossed edge and ornament.  Perhaps you recognize the pattern from the Finial Press embossing folder, a Sizzix die exclusive to Stampin' Up!  But look at the whole card:

The embossing folder is made to cover the entire front of the card, but you'll notice that only the left-hand edge of the card is embossed, and only a small portion of the ornament is embossed, and the design is perfectly positioned.

I was able to do that by cutting my embossing folder into strips (gasp!!! did she say she CUT her embossing folder into pieces?).  I was a little nervous to dive in, so to speak, but I talked myself into it by reminding myself that I can buy another one to keep intact, and it is very inexpensive.  This one yielded me four embossing "strips", all with slightly different widths and designs.  I love them ALL!

The rest of the details for this card:

Stamp Set: Lovely as a Tree, Yuletide Christmas

Colors: Handsome Hunter, Really Red, Shimmery White

Ornament punch, Holiday Windows die set, Movers & Shapers die, Big Shot, gold metallic cord, sponge dauber, dimensionals, paper piercing tool and mat.  Click on the Shop Now button above to purchase any of the items through my Stampin' Up! website.

Tomorrow I'll share another card - non-Christmas - made with the same modified embossing folder and punch.  You'll be amazed at how utterly different it is.

Carol Taggart

carol@stillstamping.com

 

Movers & Shapers Die Cuts Without The Card

Once you've discoved the fantastic layering possibilities you'll have by combining the Stampin' Up! punches with the Movers & Shapers shapes, you'll be using them over and over again, I am certain.  But I'm equally certain that you won't want every card to be made with the die - and it's not necessary to cut out the card just to get the little shape you want for layering.

These are the materials you'll need to make the card I posted yesterday.  Notice that the smaller black rectangle has the shape cut out of it.  I used the rectangle for the mat for the stamped image, and the black shape as the mat for the punched greeting.  The white piece covers up the "hole", so nobody is the wiser.  You save a little card stock, but that is minimal.  If you're making multiples of the same card, you'll save lots of time this way, because the die can cut 3 or 4 layers at a time!

Follow these simple steps.  You'll need one extended cutting pad, the Movers & Shapers die (base), a magnetic shape insert for the Movers & Shapers, and a smaller acrylic cutting pad for the top, and scraps of paper just big enough to cover the magnetic insert.  Pictured here is a cutting pad made for the Sizzix Sidekick, a little bitty machine just for Sizzlits.  You can also use the standard cutting pad.  But there's no need to use the extended pad for this cutting method, and two reasons NOT to: cutting will be faster and easier with a smaller pad on top, and a small cutting pad is less expensive when time comes to replace it. 

Lay the Movers & Shapers die onto the extended cutting pad.

Insert the magnetic piece into the "well" on the Movers & Shapers die.  The placement is not important.  In fact, you could get two different shapes into the die and cut them both out with this method.

Carefully place the small pieces of card stock (large enough to comfortably cover the insert) on top of the foam portion of the insert.

Cover it with the small cutting pad.

Roll it through the Big Shot.  It will not be necessary to roll the entire length of the long die, just enough to get the upper cutting pad passed through.  You'll hear a click and pop, but don't worry - that's normal.

Remove the upper cutting pad and lift off the die cut(s).  As you can see here, I made three at one time.  Also notice that the rest of the card stock pieces got pushed down over the foam portion when the die passed through the machine.

Just gently pry them off and either discard them or use them as a bottom layer/ mat.

Manhattan Flower My Way

I've been loving the samples posted on stamping groups and blogs using Stampin' Up!'s set, Fifth Avenue Floral.  But sadly, it's not yet a part of my vast stamp collection (it will be soon, though).  So in order to try out the lovely watercoloring technique I've been seeing, I had to get inventive. 

I do own the coordinating Sizzix Embossing folder from SU, Manhattan Flower.  The original technique calls for an embossed (with powder and heat) floral image, and the embossing folder makes a different sort of embossed floral image, but with the same result: raised lines and recessed areas between.  So I thought to myself, "Why wouldn't that work? "  It was certainly worth a try, right?  After all, it's just paper and a little investment of time.

 This is what my second try turned out like.  I love it, and I hope that you do, too.  There are more detail photos below.

So how did I do it?  First, I ran a quarter sheet of Stampin' Up!'s Shimmery White Card Stock through the Big Shot with the Manhattan Flower folder and no tabs on the platform.  The shimmery card stock is very thick, slightly creamy in color, and extremely luxurious with its shimmery smooth surface.  It makes a wonderful surface for watercoloring on.

Next, I liberally sprayed the surface of the embossed card stock with water from a little spray bottle, then picked up drops of ink with my wet Aqua Painter brush, touched it to the various sections and watched in amazement as the colors spread and blended.  I chose Regal Rose, Pretty in Pink, Summer Sun and Garden Green, although I ended up not using much of the green at all.

I did have to spray the surface from time to time to keep it wet enough that the water pooled in the recesses without really flowing over into the next area.  It's fun to go back and highlight edges with darker shades as the colors start to blend and dry.  Remember to leave some areas white, too.  Watercoloring should always have white areas unpainted.

The card was very wet, as you can well imagine.  I left it to air dry overnight.  The next morning I trimmed around the outside raised lines and started to create the actual card you see here.  First I adhered it to another quarter-sheet of the Shimmery White card stock, then trimmed that down to 3-3/4" x 5", mounting that piece to a 4" x 5-1/4" piece of Sage Shadow card stock.  My intention was to make a standard A-2 card, but it looked too crowded with any sort of greeting, so I increased the size.

The sage panel then was mounted to a folded Pink Pirouette card 5-1/2" square.  It still looked a little plain, so that whole card got mounted onto another piece of the shimmery white card stock, 5-3/4" square.

The finishing touches:  A stamped greeting framed in a Vanilla Hodgepodge Hardware label frame, a piece of shimmery goldish-beige ribbon (sorry, it's not Stampin' Up! but I had it and it looked perfect), some leaves die-cut from Sage Shadow card stock and the Sizzix Flower layers w/ Leaf die, and a custom- made 6" square envelope, made from Bella Rose Designer Series paper.

Inside the card, the brads and ribbon are covered with another piece of the Bella Rose DSP, and I haven't yet printed a verse for the main part of the inside of the card.  It's going to be a very special Wedding card for my lovely niece, Emily, and her new groom, Patrick.

I do hope you'll give this a try.  It's very relaxing, and I felt like such an artist watching the paints blend.  It's not a quick card, nor a cheap one (plus, it's heavy and square, both of which will require extra postage), but it is definitely a very special, one-of-a-kind work of art, sure to be treasured by the recipient.

A Belated Easter Greeting

Oops!  I completely overlooked this card to share with you two weeks ago.  It was another of the cards from the Mission Embossable Class I taught here in Hanover, PA last month.  This one features Embossed Pastels or Pastel Embossing (I've heard it called both).

The technique is easy - emboss a bold image with white ink and white embossing powder on dark card stock.  In this example, the stamp set used is Stampin' Up!'s Never-Ending Joy.  The image is stamped on Elegant Eggplant card stock and layered onto Whisper White, Lavender Lace and Pretty in Pink.  After the embossing has cooled, we applied pastels with blender pens and heat set it again to speed-dry the blender solution and melt the embossing powder very slightly (to help it hold the pastels).

Note:  The pastels end up looking very pale on the white image, so I had to go with deeper colors than I thought I would.  Experiment until the look is good.  And blend two or more colors to add some shading and depth.