Happy Birthday, Nonni!

Today is a happy day here on the STAMPlorations blog because our sweet girl Nonni is celebrating her birthday! Her baby, Rafa, stopped by earlier this week to let us know that there's a birthday linky party happening over here.

Rafa: Woof! Woof! Woof!
(Translation: My mom's having a partaaay!)

Happy, happy birthday, Nonni! You're an awesome crafter, teammate, and friend! We've got cards for you and we thought you'd enjoy seeing photos of our pets too :o)

Debra's Bella

Debra's card

Deepti's pets

Deepti's card

Monika's Boris

Monika's card

Shery's Shadow (left) & Rachel (right)

Shery's card

Shirley's Florence

Shirley's Florence

Vicki's card

{Spotlight Project} Monika Goes Softly Bold With Vellum...and She's Got a Video Tutorial!

Hello, everybody! How time flies; it is my turn again to inspire you. Today, I have some very easy cards to share using the new Bloom Sketches set.

Both cards feature the sunflower stamp combined with sentiments from the set. Here is the first one:

It has a very summery feel to it which is achieved by stamping the sunflower in white craft ink on a panel of vellum (16 x 7 cm), folding over the top and bottom edges to attach it to a panel of brightly shaded card stock (14 x 10 cm) using double sided tape. As you're doing this on the reverse side, it won't show on the front of your card and it leaves the vellum somewhat floating over your coloured panel.

The sentiment is stamped half onto the vellum and half onto the card using black Memento ink. This is quite easy to do. Simply make sure your panel lies flat on your work space. Ink up your stamp and stamp it in one go; the vellum is thin enough for you to do so. Once dry, all that is left to do is layer it onto your base card using foam tape.

For my next card, I used the same basic 'ingredients'. This time, the sunflower is stamped in black Memento ink and the sentiment on a strip of white card. After attaching the vellum as above, I stuck the panel directly to my base card and raised the sentiment using foam dots.

As always, there is a craft-along video tutorial. I had to wait for a bit to allow for drying time, hence the folding over and assembly of the card are not included. It is a while since I used vellum for stamping, and I had completely forgotten about it.

Crafty Tip! Vellum is not as absorbent as cardstock and it takes a while for the ink to dry. I would recommend for you to wait rather than using a heat tool, as the heat tool can sometimes warp the vellum a bit.




Hope you enjoyed your little visit today, until next time...Happy Crafting!!! :-)

PS: We're running the September pre-release sale! 5 new Christmas-themed stamp sets are available at a special bundle price (29% off) from now until September 5. Click here for details, and if you're a stamp club subscriber, you can get this bundle at an additional 15% off!

{Spotlight Project} Shirley Does Two-For-One with Generational Stamping

I thought I'd multi-task today by making two cards at once using generational stamping, so that I would have one bold card and one softer card. I'm using stamps from the new Bloom Sketches set.

The second-generation card is on the left!

I started off by inking the sunflower in Mustard Seed and Walnut Stain Distress Inks, spritzing it lightly, then spritzing lightly again for the second print on another piece of card, adding some Stormy Sky around the flowers:

Stamped Grunge Strip from Vignette: Live Love Laugh in Pumice Stone and the sentiment in Versafine Onyx Black, re-inking for the sentiment on the second panel.

That dark grey blob at the top of the first-generation panel was bothering me. So I chopped it off and trimmed the bottom. And the flower looked like it was floating in space, so I needed a stalk for it.

Enter the brushstroke from Vignette: Celebrate Artsy - it makes a great fleshy stalk! I finished off the first-generation card with a mat of Mustard Seed and a few credit card scratches...

...and the second-generation card with a wash of Stormy Sky, a few dabs of Mustard Seed, and credit card scratches.

Fancy joining the STAMPlorations Bi-Monthly Stamp Club? Click here or on the link on the sidebar for all the details.


    

{Spotlight Project} Cornelia Puts the Spotlight on the Sentiment Builders

Hi, Cornelia here today. I want to share a water color emboss resist technique with you, using two of the sentiment builder sets - Thank You and Happy.

The technique I used varies a bit and I have a tutorial for you below.

For the Happy Birthday card I also used those circles form the Holiday Artsy set and some sequins.

For the Thank You card, I heat embossed oink vellum with that pretty little flower from the Vignette: Eclectic Florals and added distress Stickles to the center.

I made a collage to not bore you with too many images.

You see my supplies: water color paper, Versamark, clear embossing powder, and my ancient watercolors that I used when I was in school...nothing fancy.

After clear embossing the sentiment, I took a brush and applied some water color around the letters and misted them with water, using a mini mister. See fist picture in the second row. Added some more colors and misted again, as needed. Once I was done and the paper dried, I cleaned off the embossed sentiment - middle image last row.

Click on photo to enlarge

The Thank You card I made slightly differently. I clear embossed just like before, but I wet the paper before applying my watercolors.

You get a slightly different effect - a somewhat softer blend of colors. You also have to work quite fast (the paper dries very quickly) and then you get borders rather than a smooth blend of colors. I kind of like both effects - depends on the card you want to make. And the overall feel of the card can be influenced with different tyes of embellishments. 

  

So here they are next to each other and you can compare - which one is your favorite?

Have a great day and thank you all for visiting!


      

Bi-Weekly Sketch Challenge #18

Welcome to our 18th bi-weekly sketch challenge! Here’s the sketch for the next couple of weeks. It’s open to interpretation. Feel free to change the orientation of the sketch, use different shapes, add other elements to suit the type of paper craft you’re making, and so on — just make sure the sketch is recognizable in your submission(s). You can use stamps by other companies to create projects that you enter to our challenges, although if you have STAMPlorations stamps in your stash, we'd be tickled if you use them!

Bi-Weekly Sketch Challenge #17 Winner and Top Picks

Thanks so much to everyone who entered their beautiful projects for Sketch Challenge #17! Shirley chose the winner and top picks for this round.

STAMPlorations Sketch Challenge #17 Winner

10. Darnell

"What's not to love about this fun card? Fabulous image, great colouring, well-balanced design - love it!"

Congratulations, Darnell! Please grab your winner badge below to display on your blog! We're looking forward to having you as a Guest Designer in next month's sketch challenge!

{Spotlight Project} Live in the Moment Mixed Media Canvas

Hello! Here's the second installment of yesterday's spotlight project. Short and sweet: it's a video of the mixed media canvas I did yesterday when I was playing with gift wrapping paper, Twinkling H2Os, and the newly released Bloom Sketches set. First, here's a look at the finished canvas:

And here's the video. It's a shorty -- only 7 minutes, 38 seconds. It's done in my usual style: in fast-forward motion, captioned, and accompanied by Mozart. Enjoy!

 

Other supplies: Life is Good (SRM Stickers); Twinkling H2Os, Inktense Blocks, Gesso and Gel Medium (Liquitex), Distress and archival inks, Memento ink

{Spotlight Project} Shery Plays with Bloom Sketches, Gift Wrapping Paper, and Twinkling H2Os

Hey, everyone! It's Shery and it's my turn to do a spotlight project. I actually did several mixed media projects (tags, a canvas panel, a card, and a scrapbook layout) because I wanted to get a lot of use out of the roll of gift wrapping paper I found. For this post, I'll share the tags I created plus a teaser on the second (because I have a video for it that I'm still editing and won't get done before this post goes live). I'll share the card and layout in my next post :o)

While I was rummaging through my supplies, I came across several rolls of gift wrapping paper I bought a couple of years ago at Target. They had a newsprint design and I knew they'd be perfect for my projects. (They were in the dollar bin and thought I may not see them again so I bought them out.) They're great for backgrounds and that's what I used them for in my tags (and subsequent projects).

To create my trio of mixed media tags, I used stamps in the newly released Bloom Sketches, manila tags, gel medium, gesso (white and transparent), Distress and archival inks, chalk ink, Twinkling H2Os, a distressing tool, scrap burlap ribbon, and stapler. 

Step 1

I adhered gift wrapping paper onto the manila tags with gel medium.

Step 2

I mixed white and transparent gesso (both by Liquitex)

and used an old credit card to apply it unevenly onto my tags.

Step 3

With a TH distressing tool, I distressed the edges of the tags

then sponged Distress ink (black soot) .

Step 4

I stamped the poppies in jet black archival ink.

Step 5

I colored the poppies with Twinkling H2Os (sweet alfalfa, mango mamba,

blue zircon, and persimmon). [Note: In the video for the mixed media canvas

panel, I show how I watercolored the poppies -- I basically used the

same techniques on both projects.]

Here's a close up of one of the tags. (I love the shimmer that the

Twinkling H2Os create!)

Step 6

I stamped the sentiments on the tags using VersaMagic chalk ink (midnight black) and finished the tags by stapling black burlap ribbon scraps I found in my stash.

Before I end this post, here's a preview of the mixed media canvas panel I did after I finished the tags. I'll have an extra post tomorrow for this project with the video. So I hope you'll come back then if you'd like to see how I did this one from start to finish. Here's the video showing how I made this canvas from start to finish :o)

Thanks so much for visiting. Hope my project inspired you! 

Shery