This card is full of blending.  The background behind the birds was done with blending brushes and Stampin' pads.  I then stamped the birds and sentiment with Early Espresso and coloured the birds and flowers with Blends.

If you have trouble remembering which inks you can use together for stamping and colouring, remember to use opposites.  If you want to colour with Blends, stamp with a water-based dye ink such as Stampin' Pads or Memento.  If you want to colour with your Stampin' Write markers, you need an alcohol or solvent-based ink.  You have water or solvent/alcohol based inks.  Stamp with one, colour with the other.  

For full instructions, email me at pamsinkpad@gmail.com.  Refer to card # 501.

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I'm in a sorority and was asked to make birthday cards to be sent to each sorority sister on her birthday.  Our colours are black and gold.

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I wasn't entirely happy with the results here but I think this would be a good technique if the surfaces weren't so large.  I stamped watercolour paper with Versamark and embossed with white emboss powder.  I then dipped a waterbrush into ink (doing the smooshing the lid technique) and painted the tulips and leaves.

 

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I love this fold-over look. 

For full instructions, email me at pamsinkpad@gmail.ca

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Order by February 10.   

Offer comfort, care, and condolences with February’s Paper Pumpkin kit.

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Once I was able to set down the Celebrating Sunflowers bundle, I picked up the Parisian Blossoms suite bundle and I think that flourish die is going to be appearing on a LOT of my future cards.   

For full instructions, email me at pamsinkpad@gmail.com

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My father-in-law lives in a seniors' residence in our city.  During COVID, residents haven't been allowed visitors.  I went through my stash and donated about 1,000 cards.  First, in November, I sent 350 "Thinking of You" cards to the residents and 250 "Thank You" cards to staff.  In December, I sent 350 Christmas cards to the residents.

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For a few days, I seemed to be using nothing but this Celebrate Sunflowers bundle.  I couldn't seem to put it down.  The cool technique I used for this card was simply embossing clear emboss powder on black cardstock.  I love the look.

Email me at pamsinkpad@gmail.com for full instructions for this card.

 

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These adorable candy boxes held two treat size candies - Smarties (the chocolate ones; if you're not from Canada, you've got to Google them) and a mini chocolate bar.  

Email pamsinkpad@gmail.com for more instructions.

 

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There's so much going on with this card.  I love yellow on black.  I wanted to test mixing ink refills with the Frost White All Purpose Ink. For the most part, the colour lightened a lot.  But you can still see the difference between the yellow and green.

I ran the full sunflower die cut through the embossing machine with an embossing folder.  The sentiment is embossed with white.  The painted sunflowers are embossed with clear powder and painted.

For full instructions, email me at pamsinkpad@gmail.com.

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This card was a Christmas gift for my husband's niece.  The plastic piece was scavenged from a travel Tylenol package.  

The clouds were made using a stencil I'd made with a cloud die and a blender brush.

So that she wouldn't have to completely destroy the card to get the $$ out, I used this die that I've had for ages.  You can also use a stitched rectangle die and run it through your embossing/cutting machine to create a 'zip strip'.  Email me if you'd like instructions.

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February Paper Pumkin preview

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 This is a fairly simple card that uses the technique of masking.  The important thing to remember when making your masks is to use thin paper.  I use plain photocopy/printer paper.  Most times, I lean down to see what I've recently thrown away and pull out anything that doesn't have ink or glue on it from whatever I was working on 5 minutes ago.

We also use a common technique that I've heard called a few different things.  I call it "stampin off".  Some people call it "2nd generation".  

Supplies Used

Stamp Set
Poinsettia Petals
Dies
Poinsettia
Wild Rose
Paper
Old Olive	3 x 4	5-1/2 x 8-1/2, scored in half
Real Red	4 x 5-1/4	3-3/4 x 2-3/4
Whisper White	3-3/4 x 5	4 x 2-1/2
Printer Paper
Ink
Real Red
Old Olive Crushed Curry re-inker
Other
Real Red Sheer Ribbon
Red Rhinestone Basic Jewels
Frost White Shimmer Paint Die cutting:  cut 2 of the large Poinsettias out of copy paper.  Using the shape shown, cut the 4 x 2-1/2 Whisper White.

Using the large Poinsettia stamp, Real Red inkpad and the 3-3/4 x 5 Whisper White cardstock, stamp 3 times.  Add a small amount of temporary adhesive to the backs of the photocopy poinsettias.  Lay them down on the stamped images to ensure you're using the correct side.  It can be difficult to line them up.  If there's an easy trick to doing this, I haven't discovered it yet.  I basically look for a single petal that stands out (like the long thin one) and try to match those.  

Once you've placed down your masks, ink up the same large Poinsettia stamp.  Stamp onto a scrap pieces of paper (also recovered from the garbage can, if you're like me), then stamp onto your cardstock.  Lift off one of the masks.  You'll see the lighter shading.  You'll also see that your mask prevented your stamped images from combining so that it looks like one is in front of the other. 

Moving your masks around the cardstock, stamp 2 more of the Poinsettias after first stamping off onto a scrap of paper.

Using the leaf stamp and Old Olive ink, stamp in any open spaces around the card.  Use the masks for the Poinsettias if necessary to continue the overlapping look.

Stamp your sentiment on the white piece that you die cut.  Glue this piece onto the Real Red piece.  Busy cut out to create a mask.  Glue this onto the Old Olive piece.  Busy cut this out to make a double mask.

To make the ribbon loops, I used the Seal tape and put down a straight line.  I pushed the ribbon onto the adhesive and made a second line over top of that ribbon, pushing down the ribbon into the adhesive again.  

Assembly:  glue the Real Red cardstock onto the base.  Glue the stamped Whisper White piece on top.  Adhere the label to the middle, using Dimensionals.  Add 3 small Red Rhinestone Basic Jewels.

I wanted a little bit of metallic shine and thought this card needed a smidge of yellow.  I wear disposal contact lenses.  Every morning, I open 2 of these little foil topped plastic trays.  I've been saving those babies for a year now in an emptied tissue box.  They don't tip, they're small and they're disposable.  They were going in the recycle bin anyway; I knew they'd be useful in my craft room.  I used a pipette and squeezed out a tiny bit of Shimmer Paint.  I added a drop of Crushed Curry and mixed.  The pipette was already dirty so why dirty up a paintbrush?  I used the tip of the pipette to dot the centres of the Poinsettias.

Done!  Don't forget to sign the back.

Supplies Used:

Also used:

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In my world, every day is a chocolate kind of today.  So tomorrow always will be, too.  

Supply List

Stamp Set
Nothing’s Better Than
Dies
Love You More Than
Paper
Seaside Spray	4-1/4 x 11, scored in half
Whisper White	4 x 5-1/4 and scraps
Early Espresso	Scraps
Ink
Early Espresso
Crumb Cake
Seaside Spray
Other
Tufted 3D embossing folder
Elegant Faceted Gems
Whisper White Flax Ribbon - 7 inches
Dark Seaside Spray Blends

This was a fun technique.  Stampin' Up! has retired this embossing folder (why? why? why?  I LOVE this folder!) but this technique can be used on any folder.  Using a sponge dauber, sponge some Seaside Spray ink on parts of the embossing folder.  Don't worry too much about the ink drying - the embossing step will pick up the ink as long as you don't wait too long.  Run the 4 x 5-1/4 piece of Whisper White through your embossing machine.  Wasn't that cool?  Set aside.  Now you have to decide if you're going to finish this card now or go through all of your scraps, inks and embossing folders to see how they all look.  Remember that what's down (depressed) will be up (raised) when you're finished.  You'll usually want to emboss on the top (the side with the SU logo on the outside) but think it through.  Maybe you want to colour in the crevices or maybe you want the raised part.

Assuming that you're back with me and have tested out all of your scraps if that was the fun you chose for today, using the dark Seaside Spray Blends, colour the Whisper White Flax Ribbon.  I buy more white ribbon than coloured because I can use my Blends to colour them to match my project.  I usually stop before I get perfect coverage.  I could have continued to colour until all of the ribbon was solid blue but I liked how it looked this way.

Stamping:  Using Early Espresso and the Whisper White scraps, stamp the sentiments shown.  Inside the card, stamp Because Adulting Is Hard (isn't it?  Except when we're crafting!).  Stamp the outline of the chocolate candies on a Whisper White scrap.  Using Crumb Cake, stamp the insides.

 

Die cutting:  Using a scrap of Early Espresso, die cut the word Chocolate and the candy shapes to use as shadow.  Die cut the stamped chocolates.

Fussy cut the sentiments.  Glue them down on Early Espresso cardstock and fussy cut around them to mat.

Now let's assemble:  wrap the ribbon around the Whisper White and glue on the back.  Glue down onto your card base.  When you're gluing down an embossed piece, you'll always want to make sure you're using enough adhesive.  Focus on the parts that will connect with your base.  

Glue down your sentiments.  Glue the word Chocolate onto the ribbon.  Glue the white candies onto the Early Espresso piece, slightly lowering the Early Espresso so that it looks like a shadow.  Use Stampin' Dimensionals to glue down the chocolates.  Add a few Elegant Faceted Gems.

Done!  Don't forget to sign the back of your card.

Supplies Used:

Other Items Used:

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Supply List

Stamp Set

• Poinsettia Petals

Dies

• Poinsettia Dies

Cardstock

• Sahara Sand cardstock 8-1/2 x 5-1/2, scored in half
• Cherry Cobbler cardstock 4 x 5-1/4, scrap
• Watercolour paper 3-3/14 x 5 and 1 x 5
• Velum scraps

Ink

• Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint
• Cherry Cobbler Stampin' Pad
• Dark Cherry Cobbler Blend

Other

• Pinewood Planks 3D embossing folder
• Whisper White Crinkled Seam Binding Ribbon
• Waterbrush
• Beaded Pearls

I've got a dozen cards in my head that use this bundle.  I made a couple before sitting down to write this and then saw something shiny.  So there are going to be a few posts today, I think.

Using the Poinsettia dies (the cutting ones and the embossing ones), cut and emboss one each of the 3 poinsettia layers from the vellum and two of the stem pieces out of the Cherry Cobbler cardstock.  I did one of each.

Now, let's do the things that will need time to dry.  I'm not a fan of glitter but I do like sparkle.  I don't know why I wanted sparkly wood, but I did and I loved the outcome.  Stampin' Up! doesn't currently have any white glimmery paper so I decided to make my own.  I poured a small amount of Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint on both pieces of watercolour paper.  I painted the whole piece using the waterbrush.  Don't worry about perfect coverage.  The next step will not only hide your flaws, but imperfections will make it look even better.  Set aside to dry.

As I was setting these aside, I noticed the vellum. Hmm, this would look better sparkly, too.  I had enough sparkle left on my waterbrush that I was able to paint the smaller two pieces.  As they dried, they curled up dramatically but I knew I could address this when I started gluing it all down.   

Colour the ribbon using the dark Cherry Cobbler Blend.  Set aside to dry.

Using the Pinewood Planks 3D embossing folder, run the large piece of watercolour paper through your embossing machine.  How beautiful is this??

Glue the watercolour paper onto the Cherry Cobbler cardstock.  Wrap the ribbon around, gluing on the back.  Glue this down onto the Crumb Cake cardstock base.

Stamp "Thank you for making this a wonderful season" onto the small piece of watercolour paper.  Notch the end, using scissors.  Glue centered on the card, partly onto the ribbon.

Assemble the poinsettia, adding a beaded pearl to the center.  Glue stems and poinsettia down.  I had to add some liquid glue here and there to manage the petals that were curling up.  Once all of the glue dried, I patted it down with my embossing buddy to make sure that any exposed stickiness was deactivated.

 

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