Monday, April 25, 2016

Thanks a million

Hi there it's Anja again with some more inspiration for you this week.


 
 


Don't you just love the new release? So many different possibilities to use all those great supplies.
For today's card I would like to focuse on those great flowers and the thanks die.
I incorporated different techniques for this card.
 




I started with a panel from watercolor paper and smooched three different distress ink colors on this paper to create a light background for my card. The flowers are masked and stamped onto some vellum using watermark ink and white heat embossing. I colored the flowers with copics at the back of the vellum so the copics wouldn't interfere with the embossing.
I diecut the word thanks and stamped it slightly offset so you see a little white outline. I stamped with a striped background stamp onto the thanks stamp thus creating the line pattern , saw this technique over at Jennifer mcquire's blog.

I adhered the vellum panel with some doublesided tape behind the flowers. Used some sequins to finish the card.

 


You can easily color with copics onto vellum when you use the backside of the stamped images. You won't get your usual blending but it gives a pretty nice effect. When you color at the backside of the vellum you won't get any interference with the embossed images and you won't ruin your copics.
There is an easy way to use diecuts with coordinating stamps. First stamp your image. Diecut your die from some scrap paper and use the negative diecut to place over the stamped image thus positioning your die to diecut. you will get a nice stamped diecut this way. In the example from today I first diecut the word thanks and then stamped it. You can see I didn't do a great job but I like the way it turned out slightly offset.







We still want to see all the things you make with our supplies so please link up your projects or join our facebook group. Have a great week; Anja

Saturday, April 23, 2016

Mood Board Inspiration!

Hey stampers, Anni here!
It has been a great release last week, hasn't it? Did you get something from the new release and are you already playing with it?
The hippo from the new set Served Up!/Es ist serviert! called my name so I decided to make a card with it.






Do you know Create a Smile has a Facebook group? It is so much fun and a lot of nice and supportive people! At the moment there is a challenge going on with prizes! Christine created a mood board for the challenge and it is very inspiring.


There are so many inspiring details - the colors, the sequins, the twine, the pattern... In the end I decided to go with the colors and the water color effect.




  • Stamp, color with copics and fuzzy cut the image.
  • Create a watercolor background. I used Ken Oliver's color burst.
  • Die cut a rectangle from this background.
  • Emboss the sentiment in white on a piece of matching cardstock.
  • Add a scrap of oatterned paper.
  • Assemble the card.




  • Did you see I used a little cup from the set Coffee first? It fits perfectly on the tablet of the hippo.
  • When I first started the card I had a totally sketch in my mind. I liked the idea very much but it didn't work out. I moved things around, changed the paper, but anything seemed to make me happy. It took me a long time! At the end I changed the whole card, just went with the hippo and the card came together easily and in no time. Sometimes you just have to let go an idea that seemed good at the beginning!
  • Mood boards can be overwhelming at first! just decide to go with two or three elements and start from there!






I hope you will join the fun in the Create a Smile Friends and Family!




 



Friday, April 22, 2016

Spring Greetings

Hello Crafters!

It's Kelly here and I'm happy to report Spring has finally arrived here!
Whoo hoo!

I'm celebrating with a happy hippo card :)


I think the hippo with his serving cart is just darling but I'm always trying to find a way to use my stamps differently. I figured out if I masked the top portion I could turn it into an open topped cart. What to add to the cart? Why flowers of course!! 

I started by using that post it note to mask my cart and then we were off and running! You can watch the card come together in the video below. 



We have a mood board challenge running on our Facebook page until April 27th. Come play along! 

Thanks for visiting guys!