A New Ink on Life

Helping Me Grow

It has been crazy busy around here with the kids finishing up school. Tomorrow is the last day for my two youngest and that means year end gifts for the teachers. I am the room parent for my 9 year old's class so that meant organizing a group gift from the kids and parents and of course making a card to go with it. 

 

When the Helping Me Grow came out in the occasions mini I knew I had to have it and I was thrilled when i saw that it made it to the new Catalogue. I started off with a Tip Top Taupe card base then layered on a piece of Serene Scenery DSP (I LOVE this paper stack). the flowers were stamped on Water Color Paper. Then using Pool Party Ink and My Aqua Painter I watercoloured the background. The flowers were coloured the same way with Sweet Sugar Plum and Wisteria Wonder inks. To create some extra interest and texture I used the tiny "ink splatters" stamp from the Timeless Textures stamp set with Sahara Sand Ink. To finish the card off I added a few basic pearls and of course a little ribbon:)

 

The Little Moments

I have been wanting to play along all week with the current Global Design Project Challenge. I finally found a little time to play today and am squeaking in just under the deadline:)
I drew inspiration from the layout of the card and use of a floral stamp set. I have been dying to ink up the new Penned and Painted Stamp set, the images in this set have multiple steps that achieve a beautiful watercoloured effect.

One of the best things about Stampin' Up! is all of the sharing of ideas that goes on. At the OnStage event in April Carrie Cudney (one of the SU! Trainers) demonstrated all of the beautiful patterned papers that are in the new catalogue. Of course I wasn't there but as a demo I have access to a bunch of resources including videos of the OnStage presentations. She used the Penned and Painted stamp set with the Serene Scenery DSP stack and I was so inspired that I had to give it a try.

 

 I used the sheet of paper that has almost a linen like look to it. Although it is just a print on paper the texture pattern gives a very unique and realistic look. Using several different ink colours (listed below) I stamped the flowers directly on the DSP. For the sentiment panel I first inked the floral image in Watermelon Wonder then stamped off first to lighten the ink before I stamped it on the die cut Very Vanilla Paper. I did the same thing with the leaves using Cucumber Crush ink. I am seriously lacking in sentiment stamps so I pulled out one of my favourites from the Watercolor Wings stamp set. 

Although the colours of my card are very different from the challenge card I hope you can see how I was inspired by Shawn's beautiful card and hopefully my card inspires you:)

In my Thoughts

I am sure like many of you, creating sympathy cards is one of the hardest projects for me to actually stamp. This card is long over due and I found it very hard to create it as there were many emotions that surfaced. But I also know how much a hand stamped card and words of love and compassion is needed and appreciated by those who have suffered a loss.   

 

 

I decided to use the beautiful woodgrain paper from the Serene Scenery Designer Paper Pad. This pad is full of gorgeous photo realism papers and then on the B side there are basic versatile designs like dots and circles in coordinating colours.  While crafting the other night I made sure to use several of Jenilee's dies that I don't have (yet;). I cut out several of the intricate flowers, leaves and flourishes from the Flourish Thinlits Set. I tucked the large die cut behind the main image. The layout for this card was actually inspired by the current Fab Friday Challenge. It has been ages since I participated in any online challenges, I am hoping to get back to them now. It is always to fun to use a sketch or colour challenge as a jumping off point for creativity. I strayed a little from the sketch but I think you can definitely see where I drew inspiration from it.

Now the hard part will be the inside of the card, it is so hard to find the right words at a time like this.

Wishing you all a great day!

Jenn

Playful Birthday Surprise

Last night I got to have a fun night of chatting and stamping with my fabulous SU! upline Jenilee. Well I should confess that I did mostly chatting and not much stamping, lol:) She brought over a bunch of great new products that I got to ohh and awww over while she busily prepped for her upcoming classes. 

Now one of the best things about seeing something in person is being surprised by liking something you may not otherwise have considered. Now I usually have a certain style of products that I am drawn to so when I actually had the Playful Palette suite of products in hand and played with them a little I was delighted that I easily came up with two cute birthday cards that were relatively easy to put together. 

 

 

Now I am not a purple girl; at all but I must say Sweet Sugarplum paired with Blushing Bride (my favourite pink) really makes a pretty combination. I kept this card monochromatic with a punch of black. By stamping the balloon images over and over again in the two main colours I created a fun background for the punched balloons and banner sentiment. 

 

 

Again for this card I used the Playful Palette DSP but this time I used more patterns that showcase several colours. This card is definitely a clean and simple design. Several small strips of DSP where cut into strips and placed on top of each other. I also added a sentiment banner on top and popped it up with dimensionals then added 2 punched DSP balloons.  

 

Well that is it for today but I will be back with few more cards that I created using some of my favourite new products.

Jenn

 

 

Onstage Display Stamper Entry

Stampin' Up! will be having a fun event in November called Onstage and this year there is a local event in Vancouver. To say I am looking forward to it is an understatement. One of the things I missed most when I took a break from being a demo was the awesome events SU! would hold for their demonstrators and how amazing it was to connect with so many awesome people who share the same crazy passion for stamps and paper.

Another cool thing that they are doing this year is asking local demonstrators to be display stampers for the event. So this post is my application:) I loved creating display board samples the year I was an Artisan Award Winner, so fingers crossed I get to create some samples again.

 

 With me being a "new" demo again I was seriously lacking in current SU! product but it just goes to show that you do not need a lot of stuff to create great projects. For this 12x12 scrapbook page I used the Affectionately Yours DSP and a sheet of Crumb cake card stock. This DSP have such nice clear colours and there are two specialty sheets with bronze foiled details; so pretty! I had to really get creative with my title as I have no current alphabet stamps or dies. I ended up using the "happy" from the Party Pop-Up Thinlets. I also used one of my absolute favourite stamp set and coordinating dies; Watercolor Wings and Butterfly Thinlets.

 This is a super easy quick card with lots of white space. Sometimes even simple cards can have a big impact. To add interest I cut my top layer piece of card stock on an angle then a 3/4" strip of of one piece to create a space for my sentiment. The two panels are attached to the card base with Dimensionals (this is one of the crafting items I can not live with out). I used the Ballon Celebration Stamp set and matching Balloon Bouquet Punch. Add a little washi and some Whisper White Baker's Twine and you've got a cute quick card with texture and dimension.

As I mentioned early I do not have a lot of current SU! products so you may see a little bit of a recurring color scheme with my projects. There were some must have items that I had to get when I put in my first order and one of them was the 2015-2017 and 2016-2018 In Colors. This card showcases the very pretty Mint Macaron. 

This card is probably my favourite one of the 3. It just seems so "me". I had the idea for this card before I even received my products. As soon as I saw the Hardwood Background stamp I knew I just had to have it and use it with White Craft Ink on Crumb Cake Card stock. I then did a lot of collage stamping with the Timeless Textures Stamp set using Versamark Ink and the matching Crumb Cake Ink. I then cut out a piece of Vellum Card stock using the Lots of Labels Framelits and added some watercolor using an Aqua Painter and Peekaboo Peach and Sweet Sugar Plum (2016-2018 In Colors). I then did some stamping on the vellum with white ink to add subtle texture. The butterfly was stamped using Mint Macaron and Peekaboo Peach (I stamped off some of the ink first to give a softer look).

 

 

 

To apply as a display stamper you were required to make 3 cards, a scrapbook page and 2 3D projects. For my first 3D I created this cute tiny scrapbook box. This little project makes such a fun gift and is easy enough to create with kids. When I said little I mean little. The finished box measures 4" squared. I used Night of Navy card stock along with the beautiful Affectionately Your DSP.

For the second 3D project I decorated this simple white picture frame from IKEA. Washi Tape is great for dressing up a plain frame. I love the beautiful multilayer images in the Picture perfect Stamp set but I really adore this sentiment from the set. I thought it would be the perfect phrase to put on this picture of my 16 year old. Phrase strip stickers are very on trend within the scrapbooking industry at the moment so I created my own by cutting up the words into strips.  

Well that is it from me for the moment but I can not tell you how much fun it was to play around with SU! products and stretch my creativity.

Have a great day!

Jenn

I Just Couldn't Stay Away

I know gasp I am actually post to this here blog of mine. Well I have some fun news; I am once again a Stampin' Up! demonstrator:) So there will be lots of things going on over here during the next few weeks. My blog will be getting a little make over and I will be adding all of my SU! info and links. I must say I am really excited to come back to the company that started my love of paper crafting so many years ago and I have missed sharing that with others. 

So what does that mean? It means that I will once again be posting to my blog on a regular bases and I will be using Stampin' Up! products. This also means that if you live in Canada you can order directly from my website and that I am here to help with any questions you may have about SU! products and/or projects I post. 

 

Stampin' Up's new catalogue just launch on June 1st and I literally squealed when I got my paper copy in hand. You can view it now on line Here or let me know if you are local and would like to receive a paper copy.

So many exciting things to come and I look forward to sharing with all of you soon:)

 

Jenn