Some Digital Fun with Forest Friends and Circle Circus

This card was made with the Forest Friends digital download.  In my publishing program, I arranged the tree and the deer on the page and selected the colors for the images.  After I printed it out, I used markers to add a little contrasting color to the leaves and draw in some grass.  I sponged SU blue distressing ink around the images and then the tea distressing ink around the edges.  Distressed the edges with the tools in the SU Distressing Essentials kit.  I then scored lines on a scrap piece of Crumb Cake cardstock and inked it with the Tea distressing inks from the kit, trimmed it out and placed it on the Choclolate Chip scrap punched with the Eyelet Border Punch (SU).  I also stamped the Thanks stamp from the Riveting set (SU-retired) on the craft scrap and punched it out with a 1-1/4" circle punch.  I had a little flower punch and I used it to punch out a flower out of Old Olive cardstock and adhered it to the center of the circle and then applied Crystal Effects over that.  A scrap of Chocolate Chip was punched with a small scallop circle punch and layered with the stamped circle. The base of the card is River Rock.

This was made with the Circle Circus digital set.: I'm going to demonstrate the circle card tonight for my friends at our weekly card club meeting. The design was pretty much a case of the sample provided with the set when I downloaded it I just embellished it a little with the silver beads and scallop border. Unfortunately the silver beads and scallop border punch are not from SU but I'm still accumulating my SU supplies and tools.  I took the hello, friend image, put it in a graphics box and made the back ground a burgundy color and the sentiment white.  I colored 4 circles and I after I printed them, I punched the circles with a 1" circle punch.  I trimmed the "hello" panel down to fit on the front of a white cardstock base leaving a 1/8" border.  Trimmed a strip of Daffodil Delight to fit under the "hello" panel and punched a Baja Breeze scrap with a scallop border punch and.  Adhered everything tothe card base.  Punched an extra circle and popped it up on its matching circle with a dimension dot and finished it off by adding silver beads.

Cards for Open House

My inaugural event an SU demonstrator is Sunday, August 29. I am hosting an open house to introduce all my friends to SU and cardmaking. Those in attendance will be both crafters and noncrafters. So I needed to design cards to appeal to different tastes in style.  I went with Cute, Clean and Simple (CAS), and Vintage.   I am also showing what can be done with stamps from coloring them in, to straight stamping, and a different kind of coloring technique such as popping pastels (stamping with Versamark Ink and applying some chalk to add the color). 

Style: Cute
Samp Set:  Jolly Old St. Nick (Holiday Mini)
Ink:  Stazon Jet Black, Bashful Blue
Cardstock:  Whisper White, Bashful Blue, Real Red
Accessories:  Ribbon, Scallop Border Punch,  Watercolor Wonder Crayons
Technique:  Coloring (Watercolor Wonder Crayons)

Style: CAS
Stamp Sets:  A Word for You, Elements of Style
Ink:  Versamark, Rich Razzleberry
Cardstock:  Crumb Cake, Cherry Cobbler
Acessories:  Paper Flower and white bead, 1" circle punch
Technique: Straight Stamping (Versamark ink)

Style: Vintage
Stamp Set:  Elements of Style
Cardstock:  Basic Black, Cherry Cobbler, Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla
Paper:  Designer Series Paper (NewsPrint)
Ink:  Versamark, Stazon Jet Black
Accessories:  Designer Hardrware (Antique Brads), Crochet Trim, Taffeta Ribbon (Basic Black), Extra Large Punch (Decorative Label , from Holiday Mini), Stampin' Pastels, Pastels Pearl Stickers (non SU)
 Technique:  Popping Pastels (Versamark Ink and Stampin' Pastels chalk)

Love You Much Peace Within

The design for this card came from the Splitcoaststampers.com sketch challenge SC293. It was perfect for this image from the Peace Within Set.  Color choice was kind of random but really just sprang out of the colors of ink pads I pulled together to color the image.  The image was stamped on white glossy cardstock with Black StazOn ink.  I also stamped it again on scrap piece of cardstock to make a mask.  I masked off the image and then sponged color from the Bashful Blue and Sierra Sand dye ink pads.  I colored the flowers, leaves, pot,  pillow, cat and butterfly using the dye ink pads as well and an applicator.  I did all this by squeezing the closed ink pad together mashing the lid down onto the ink, open the pad and use the lid like a palette to apply by taking the ink from the lid with the applicator.  Colors used to color the image were Melon Mamo, Pear Pizzazz, and Peach Parfait.  The Sierra Sand cardstock was embossed with 2 different the embossing folders.  On the larger embossed piece I just rubbed the Sierra Sand ink pad on the edges of the card stock to add depth.  Love You Much from the Well Scripted SU Digital Download set was then stamped on the left corner of the image.  Pearl stickers and ribbon were added (non-SU items) for embellishment. 

Card Recipe:

• Cardstock - Bashful Blue, Sierra Sand, and Melon Mambo (SU)
• Ink - Bashful Blue, Sierra Sand, Melon Mambo, Pear Pizzazz, Peach Parfait (SU), Jet Black (StazOn)
• Stamps - Peace Within, Well Scripted (SU)
• Tools/Accessories:  Petals a Plenty , and Square Lattice Texture Embossing Folders, Die Machine, pearl stickers, and ribbon. 

Extreme Guitar (rubber stamp) and Extreme Elements (Digital Brush Stamp Set)

This is for my daughter whose birthday is coming up soon.  She is obviously into the music scene and lately is loving the Beatles music after watching the DVD Across the Universe a musical featuring Beatles music.  So that inspired the card's theme.  This card features both rubber stamping technique on the Extreme Guitar stamp and SU Digital Download set Extreme Images. This set is also available in the catalog to go with the line of "Extreme"  images.  I used the In Colors Pear Pizzazz, Concord Crush, and Blushing bride ink to ink up the image and then used my Serif  PagePlus publishing program (free online) to color the digital images as close as I could to the SU colors. For the stamp itself I was inspired to ink it using a technique called Plaid Silhouettes from a Splitcoaststampers Technique Challenge.  Basically, you just take your ink colors and working light to dark.  Use your lightest color pad and touch the edge to your stamp on the diagnol going left to right, take the next color and go the opposite way, and then I touched up what wasn't inked with the darkest color.  The stars are punched out with the SU star punch and the image and stars are adhered with Dimension Dots. The word Daughter was just typed in a text box in the publishing program and printed with teh background elements.

Let me know if you have any questions about this card/technique or the SU Digital Downloads.  The downloads are a wonderful way to stretch your crafting $$$$. 

SUPPLY LIST FOR Extreme Guitar Card

Cardstock:  All SU Pear Pizzazz and Whisper White

Ink:  All SU Pear Pizzazz, Concord Crush, and Blushing Bride

Stamps:  SU Extreme Guitar (Wood Mounted Rubber) and Extreme Elements (Digital Download)

Accessories:  SU Dimension Dots and Large Star Punch

SU Extreme Elements
Stamp Brush Digital Set

Creating with the Two-Step Bird Punch

Peach Parfait monochromatic Two Step Bird Punch Thank You Card
See Supply List Below

Shape punches are great. I like the quick and easy way that you can cut out precise shapes for use in projects. The first time I saw the Stampin Up Two-Step Bird Punch in the spring mini catalog, I had to have it. I am glad to see it is in the 2010-2011 catalog. I made this monochromatic card using the cardstock, designer Series Paper, and cardstock in Peach Parfait from the 2010-2011 In Color collection. In addition to the bird punch, I stamped images from Inspired by Nature. This shows that you can use a large stamp (like both the images in this set) by inking a smaller portion to put on smaller piece of cardstock or inking the entire image and overstamping on the small piece of cardstock.  The sentiment is from A Word for You set. The pattern paper is also from the catalog (page I also used the Square Lattice embossing folders.  Also, below are a couple of other cards I made using the SU bird punch before I became a SU demonstrator. While all the products on those cards are not SU they certainly show the different ways to use the punch.

Supply List for SU Peach Parfait Two-Step Bird Thank You Card:

Tools: Two-Step Bird Punch (page 202), Square Lattice Embossing Folder (page 214), Word Window and Modern Label punches (page 203),  Small Corner Rounder Punch (page 201)

Ink: Peach Parfait Classic Ink Pad(page 165)

Cardstock/Paper:  Peach Parfait Cardstock, Peach Parfait Designer Series Paper

Stamps: Inspired by Nature (page 104), A Word For You (page 158)

Non-SU products: Pearl sticker, white brads and organza ribbon.

Envelope Card
Bird punched out Numerous times for both
outside of envelope and insert.
When you want to change the direction
your bird is facing image using patterned paper,
 flip the punch  over and punch the
opposite way of your first punched bird.

Shadow effect with bird and branch punched
out on dark gray cardstock and covered
with sheet of vellum.

Bird punched out on pattern paper.
Pearl sticker added for eye