Card Swap I

In giddy anticipation of attending Stampin' Up's annual convention this month, I have been making card fronts  for swaps.  It's traditional to make cards to swap with other demonstrators, looking for fresh perspectives and new friends.  The dunes were traced from a french curve drawing tool onto Sahara Sand card stock and  sponged with ink.  The shell was a folded piece of Crisp Cantaloupe punched 3/4 of the way into the punch.

Supplies for this card are all available from my website: www.creativeflare.stampinup.net

Stamp Sets:  sentiment- World Treasures(132100w $$23.95/126767c $17.95)
seaweed - Papaya Collage (132055w $31.95/126612c $23.95).  Block E is recommended for both sets

Ink:   (131171) Bermuda Bay
(126959) Wild Wasabi
(126983) Calypso Coral
 (126976) Sahara Sand
(131179) Smoky Slate

Card Stock:
Background: (131297) Coastal Cabana
Seashell: (131298) Crisp Cantaloupe
Sand:  (121043) Sahara Sand
Oyster: (131202) Smoky Slate
Sentiment:  (131203) Soft Sky

Punches:  7/8" Scallop Circle (129404 $12.95)
Itty Bitty Shapes punch pack (118309 $16.95 set of 3 shapes)

Sizzix Big Shot die cutting machine (113439 $99.95) with the Apothecary Accents Framelets (127003 $24.95)

Also used were Sponge Daubers (102892 $10.95 for 12), Stampin' Dimensionals (104430, $3.95 for 300) and last but not least, Pearl BasicJewels (119247 $4.95 for 150)

Acrylic Distress Technique

Happy October!

Here's a card that we made in my last class using the Acrylic Distress Technique. This is a very simple technique to try out, and it looks fabulous.

All you need is acrylic paint and a sponge brush, card stock (I used Very Vanilla (101650) but any light color will work); an embossing folder and your Big Shot; sand paper and ink. I used my new Stampin' Up sanding block (129367), it's a great little tool, and has a large sanding surface on the back and a narrow one on top.  It comes with sandpaper that has a Velcro backing so it just sticks right to the block.

First, paint a light coat of acrylic paint on the card stock to be distressed and allow it to dry thoroughly.  This color is "Key West" by Apple Barrel.

Next, run your painted card stock through the Big Shot using your embossing folder. Make sure the raised portion of the design you want to distress will come through on the painted side. I used the Lacy Brocade embossing folder from this fall's Holiday Mini Catalog (127819).

Cut or punch the painted card stock, if desired. I used the Apothecary Accents framelets dies (127003). Sand the raised area until card stock shows through.  Make sure your paint is thoroughly dry, otherwise the card stock will tear.

Using a sponge dauber, lightly sponge ink onto the sanded portions of the card stock. Be sure to sponge along the edges as well. The ink will stick to the exposed card stock more than the paint, darkening the design. Soft Suede (126978) is the color used on this card.

Finally, combine your acrylic distress background with your other card elements! Pop! Easy and elegant.  The phrase on this card comes from the World Treasures stamp set (126765w/126767c) and is also available in French (128228).

Enjoy!

Do it Yourself Stamps

The Sizzix Big Shot is a great tool to have on the shelf... but mine never stays there. There's no paper crafting project that a few die cuts can't improve. I've found yet another way to use the Big Shot. The initial idea came from the great altered art sorcerer, Tim Holtz. The Great Tim had used his Big Shot to cut out 6mm Craft Foam with Bigz and Originals dies, and glued them to backings he cut from the stiff plastic packaging from some of his supplies. Voila! Stamps! Very clever! I decided to take it one step further and incorporate Stampin' Up's Clear Mount Cling Foam. Using the Cling Foam enables you to mount your newly cut foam stamps on your acrylic blocks and be able to reposition them and couple them together for whatever back ground composition you wish, and you can store them in the thin plastic cases made for our regular stamps!

Supplies:

Thin craft foam, any color. I prefer white, while it shows stains after a few uses it is still easy to see where the ink is on the stamp. While I experimented with both 6mm and thin craft foam, I found that when combining the thickness of the craft foam with the Cling Mount Foam, the thin stuff was easiest to run through the Big Shot and plenty thick enough to stand up off of your block. Tim used black craft foam on his blog, must be a guy thing.

Stampin' Up! Clear Mount Cling Foam. You get (2) 8 ½ x 11 sheets – enough to fill 4 or more Clear Mount Stamp Cases if you're thrifty.

Big Shot and Bigz or Originals Dies

Clear Mount Stamp Cases

Ink, Paper, etc...

Directions:

1. Measure the size of foam 1/8 th inch larger all around the die cut area to be sure to cover it completely. There is one clingy side and one sticky side of the cling mount foam, when making your “sandwich” for the Big Shot, the “cling” side will be down on the die if you want the stamp to look exactly like the finished die cut, or up toward the cutting pad if you want the stamps to print in the reverse image. “Up” or “down” might make a difference in your measurement, begin with the goal in mind.

1. Adhere craft foam to Cling Mount Foam. Make it nice and exact as possible, you want both pieces to cover your die cut.

2. Make your Big Shot “sandwich” - cutting pad, die, foam pieces, cutting pad. If you are wanting an exact image and your craft foam side is up, be sure that your cutting pad is new and smooth. The texture of a cutting pad will mar the foam if the cutting pad is heavily worn. What I do with my cutting pads is use one exclusively as a cutting surface and keep the other smooth. Then when the both sides of my cutting surface are excessively worn down, I swap it out with my smoother one and use one new cutting pad as a smooth backer. That way I don't have to use both my new ones in a set at once, and I always have a smooth sheet of acrylic to use to cut foam, ink up to load my brayer, or it can be used with Cling Stamps to create a large composition for decorating a greater area, etc...

1. Run your “sandwich” through the Big Shot. It will be a little thick and you might need an extra hand, but it will come through just fine.

1. Pop out your die cut stamp, peel the backing off the “cling” side of the foam and adhere to your acrylic block, ink, stamp, and clean just as you would a conventional rubber stamp. Works great with Classic Ink, Craft Ink, Versamark, watercolor techniques, “Kissing” techniques - where you stamp on the foam and then stamp the foam onto your paper, not what you do with your honey on Saturday night, what are you thinking?

The Stampin' Up “Lattice” Die was my personal favorite. Not only did it create an intriguing background, but you also get all the groovy inner pieces to make patterns with. Flowers, borders, relief patterns... so much to do with those pieces! I've photographed a few ideas but there's so much more you can do with this, give it a go!

The “Top Note” Die was a great one for watercoloring and kissing – really a unique look.

Sharing your creativity does make a difference to everyone around you. 

Enjoy! 

Ginormous Cards

My grandparents recently celebrated their 68th anniversary, and I wanted to commemorate the event with an extra special card.  The finished size of the card is 12" x 9-3/4", able to fit in a standard 10" x 13" mailing envelope.

Supplies:

2 sheets of 12 x 12 card stock

Hearts Framelets 

Big Shot

Tasteful Trim Bigz XL die

Small Heart Punch

Blossom Builder Punch

Scallop Trim Border Punch

Designer Series Paper

Tim Holtz' Grungeboard Numbers

Step 1:  I scored 1 12 x12 sheet of card stock at 9-3/4" and folded it along the score line.  This forms the spine of the card.  The second sheet of card stock I cut at 9-5/8", and adhered it to the inside of the small flap.  This makes the front and back of the card

This is the card, opened on my Simply Scored board to show the scale...

This is the finished card.  I used Tim Holtz' grungeboard numbers to trace the large "68" and cut it out with scissors... I'm too cheap to actually use them, I just keep tracing and cutting them for my projects :)

The stamp sets used are: Perfectly Penned and Elements of Style, ink and card stock colors used are Always Artichoke, River Rock and Calypso Coral, the little hearts were coated with Crystal Effects and let dry - takes about an hour.

Inspiration Everywhere...

Someone recently asked me where I get my inspiration for making cards.  There's inspiration everywhere!  A few good places to look are paper crafting magazines, which are great for demonstrating new products and techniques, another is blog-surfing - also a sure-fire way to find something new to try on your own projects.  Today, we're talking textiles.  In a recent blog, I demonstrated a card modeled after one of my grandmother's needlepoint creations.  This blog is about taking what you see everyday, and letting that fuel your creativity.

My 5 year old son took this photo of me in my favorite T-shirt.  It's a gray background with red, yellow and orange filigree chairs, and it says blah blah blah "coffee" blah blah etc... (I love coffee).  It's a very simple everyday item...

So now, here's the T-shirt in the form of a card - Basic Gray card stock, with Summer Starfruit lattice die cut, and a Riding Hood Red blossom.  The "Thank You" sentiment comes from the Perfectly Penned stamp set, #122890w/112892c stamped in Riding Hood Red classic ink.  Basic Gray is a fantastic launch pad for zany color.

This is a sweater from my church's coat closet... There's no telling who's sweater it is, but as I was hanging up my coat before church one morning, this sweater was there and I had to take a photo of it, it was just too brilliant.

I cut some concentric squares with my paper trimmer, 1-1/2", 1-1/4", 1" and punched a 3/4" circle of Whisper White card stock for the center.  The colors here are:  Elegant Eggplant, Perfect Plum, Wisteria Wonder (purples); Rich Razzleberry, Melon Mambo, Pretty in Pink (pinks).  Sponge the edges in the darkest color, pierce the center of the stack, give each layer a good scrunch, and hold it all together with at brad.  Stampin' Dimensionals are the best way to adhere the flowers to the card front, they give the brad a little cushion as well as popping the flower up off the surface.

The background is a 4" x 5-1/4" piece of vellum card stock, run through the Big Shot with the Houndstooth embossing Folder.  The Label background is Basic Gray card stock cut with a Label Framelets die, and run through the Big Shot with the Square Lattice embossing folder.  The leaves are Summer Starfruit, Lucky Limeaid and Old Olive card stock.  Like the flowers, I sponged the edges in the darkest layer color (Old Olive) and gave each a scrunch.  The leaf shape comes from an old stencil of a rounded triangle, and a little free-hand extrapolation.  Stamp set is Loving Thoughts #125843w/125845c

While neither of these examples are exactly like the originals, the inspiration comes from the forms and colors of the fabrics.  Take a fresh look at your decor, closet , or coat rack, and see what inspires you...

Enjoy!

Artisan Award Design Team Submission

Hello!

Welcome to my first blog as Creative Flare Cards.   Previously I'd been using the domain name www.happystamperkris.blogspot.com,  and that was working for where I was at the time.  Now that I'm branching out more it's time to consolidate all the web entities under a similar name.  

My website is 

www.creativeflare.stampinup.net; 

facebook is 

www.facebook.com/CreativeFlareCards; 

email is 

creativeflarecards@gmail.com.

I've got a theme, and I'm sticking with it ;)

So here's one of the things been on the work table in May:   My submissions for Stampin' Up's yearly Artisan Award.  It's a competition open to all Stampin' Up demonstrators in the USA and Canada.   All the submissions had to be made exclusively with Stampin' Up products that were for sale during the first part of the year, and they were due May 31.    The requirement was 5 cards, 3 scrapbook pages and 2 decorative items.  After racking my brain for about 2 months, this is the result!  

Card 1 is a standard A2 size card made with the Thoughts and Prayers stamp set.  It features the Boho Blossoms, XL Oval, and Butterfly Punches; Lattice Bigz and Beautiful Butterflies Bigz dies; Pool Party, Island Indigo, Wisteria Wonder, Whisper White, Always Artichoke and Blushing Bride card stock; Pool Party  seam binding ribbon, and Basic Pearls.

I love 3-D cards.  It's a great impact and the same size as a regular A2 card when folded, but literally stands out when open.  Typically it's called a zig-zag or shutter card, and the card base pattern can be found at www.splitcoaststampers.com - but what you do with it is completely up to you.    Stampin' Up did a sneak peek promotion in April featuring some of the new Summer Smooches Designer Series Paper.  The card base is  5-1/4' x 12" strip of Rose Red card stock.  I also had fun with the Basic Rhinestones and the Fabulous Phrases set.

For the epicureans, this was the Studio Sketches stamp set, on More Mustard, Bravo Burgundy, Whisper White and Basic Black.  A little Bakers' Twine in Early Espresso gives it an added texture.

This was the first card I used Crystal Effects on... it gives a little shine to some of the dots on the outer circles, and I coated the little punched flowers with it and let it dry.  It gave them the effect of being an acrylic bubble embellishment.  Cajun Craze, Island Indigo and Confetti Cream were the colors used.

I enjoy shaped cards, this was made with the Framelets Labels collection, cut on one edge to make it fit into a medium (A2) envelope.  The flower was made with the Ornament Punch.  Basic Gray is a smashing background for Calypso Coral, Cherry Cobbler, and Riding Hood Red.  I used the "shaving cream" technique with Whisper White card stock to get the pattern on the flower petals.

Inside of the same, using the Summer Solstice stamp set and the En Francais background stamp.  There's a little Frost White Shimmer Paint sponged on the background, too.  The window was cut with a Hearts Framelet die.

The contest called for 3 scrapbook pages, all are 12 x 12,  and they all feature my boys.  This first one uses the Blossom Builder punch to create a flame border along a 1-1/4" piece of Riding Hood Red card stock.  It was really hard to let go of these!

The arabesque border was created using the Ornament Punch.  I will add that older blog to this one for reference.

This was a spontaneous act of patriotism on the part of my oldest son when he was in Kindergarten.  It was so touching, and the best way to keep it simple seemed to go with a Haiku poem instead of trying to write out the whole story.

I did a shadowbox collage for one 3-D item submission, it was based off products featured for Sale-a-bration this past winter.   I did one for myself, without the frame, backed on foam core to decorate my office, and my husband liked it so much he suggested I make another for Stampin' Up.  The stamps are the Fresh Vintage set and the Pursuit of Happiness set.

This is my last one, it's about 34-35 roses made from Cherry Cobbler card stock and the Blossom punch, hot glued to a 5" floral Styrofoam ball.  The leaves were made with the Ornament punch and Garden Green card stock, sponged in Garden Green ink.  It hangs from a bow of Cherry Cobbler Seam binding ribbon and some Victoria 5/8" trim.  The roses were sponged with some Champagne Shimmer Paint.  This took 8 sheets of 8-1/2" x 11" Cherry Cobbler card stock to complete, plus every scrap I could get a hold of... time to order more....


There it is!  That was my submission for this year's competition, and the results will be released toward the mid-month about who won and will be admitted to the Design Team... There's probably a 1:1,000 chance of winning, but I'll let you know what happens :)


Enjoy!!!
Kristine