Let's Go . . . Explore!

It is the Centennial of our National Park System this year!  Yes, we have been enjoying the foresight of those who planned the park system for 100 years.  If you are lucky enough to have a fourth grader living in your home like I do, your pass to the National Park System is free.  Imagine Crafts theme for July is summer time, which to me means camping and seeing the natural wonder of the landscape around us.  I have many childhood memories of camping all over the Western US including the great state of Alaska.  It is those memories that inspired the scene behind the map of the United States in this three dimensional card.  The card was photographed in bright sunlight to highlight the shiny trailer die cut so the sentiment and map is shadowed into the background for a fun colored layered effect.

 

A full tutorial can be found over at Imagine Crafts so you can duplicate this fun card for yourself.  

Supplies used

Imagine

·      Memento in Paris Dusk, Pear Tart, and Cottage Ivy

·      StazOn in Forest Green and Timber Brown

·      Ink Blusher

Other

·      Strathmore Bristol Heavy Weight white cardstock

·      Fun Foam

·      Repurposed clear packaging

·      Spellbinders:  Grand Labels Eleven, On the Road

·      Unity Stamp Company:  Life is a Journey

·      Technique Tuesday:  On Vacation

·      Fairytale Creations Chalk Talk stencil

·      Stamping Station:  The Great Outdoors and Skiing stencils

·      Repositionable tape

·      Die Cut machine

·      Permanent adhesive

  

Fun in the Sun with a recipe

It is time for a new challenge over at Ruby’s Rainbow Challenges, Fun in the Sun with a recipe.  Use one image, two patterned papers, and three embellishments for this challenge.  What is more fun than a sun wearing sunglasses sending Good Vibes?

The images are stamped in Delicata Black Shimmer and heat embossed with Imagine Iridescent embossing powder.  The sun is by American Art Stamp and the sentiment is from Unity Stamp.   Memento Dual Marker is colored on a plastic work surface and picked up with a Nishi water brush.  I used Lady Bug, Tangelo, Cantaloupe, and Dandelion.  The lips are colored directly with Lady Bug.  The image is die cut with Elizabeth Craft Designs Stitched Rectangles.  Three gold heart brads are added to the bottom corner.  My Minds Eye Magnolia paper collection provided the two patterned papers that back the image.

Please stop by Ruby’s Rainbow Challenges to see the creations of the talented design team, and enter your own version of Fun in the Sun.  We would love to see your work!

Summertime!

Summertime!  Yes, we are well into summer and hopefully your time is spent enjoying wonderful weather with a little bit of crafting thrown in too!  Our challenge for the next two weeks at Retro Rubber is to create a summertime related card or layout.  

I went with some really old fun images that just mean summer at our house, jumping on the trampoline!  Now of course it is my kids and not our dogs, but you get the idea!  Actually we have to leave the dogs indoors during trampoline time because they get all excited and sometimes run underneath the tramp at just the right time to get bonked on the head, true story!

I call this card a “One-layer wonder” as once I got started I built the scene with just stamping, masking, and inking.

Step One

Stamp the Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers (say that 10 times fast, bet you can’t!) trampoline and jumping dog in Memento Tuxedo Black.  Both the images are from about 1997 or 1998 from the sit-on-the-floor and dig through the unmounted-rubber-stamp-pit at the stamp convention in Portland. 

Step Two

Stamp the same images on a Post-It note and fussy cut just inside the line.  Lay the masks over the stamped images and stamp in the Artistic Stamp Exchange Grass from 1995 in Memento Cottage Ivy and Pear Tart.

Step Three

Use the Fairytale Creation stencil to create clouds with an Ink Blusher and Versa Color Cyan and Baby Blue.  Use a Fantastix to color in the areas under the trampoline.

Step Four

Color on a plastic surface with Memento Dual Markers in London Fog (tramp), Pistachjio (tramp surface), and Toffee Crunch (dog) and pick up the color with a Nishi water brush to lightly shade and color the images.

Step Five

Stamp Hero Arts’ Many Birthday Messages from 2015 in Delicata Golden Glitz.  The sentiment just demanded a sparkly ink don’t you think?

There you go, a one-layer wonder ready to go for someone’s birthday coming up soon!  As my husband says, not every card has to have 20 layers to be effective!  So come up with your own Summer time project and post it over at Retro Rubber Blog Challenge.  We would love to see your work!

Butterfly Tote for Imagine Crafts

There are some wonderful Imagine Crafts products that are designed for permanent use on fabric.  I enjoyed personalizing this simple canvas bag with All Purpose Inks and Memento Luxe Inks as a gift for my mom who loves butterflies.  It is simpler than it looks!

 

This beautiful canvas bag came together is less than an hour.  If I didn't have so many totes already I would make one for myself!  This is a great idea for a bridesmaid gift or a gift for someone special!

Please check out the Imagine Blog for the full tutorial! 

Supplies Used:

Imagine

·      All Purpose Ink in Thistle and Cerulean Blue

·      0.5 fl oz Spray Bottle

·      Ink Droppers

·      Memento Luxe

Other

·      Crafters Workshop Flutterby

·      Local King Rubber Stamp:  Butterfly Effect stamp set and die set

·      Stampology Autum Leaves Cutesie Alpha

·      White canvas bag (found at Walmart less than $3)

·      Freezer paper

·      White muslin

·      Fusible interfacing

·      Iron

·      Die cut machine with metal shim

·      Cardstock

·      Scissors

·      Hot glue gun and glue

Christmas in July Blog Hop

With the wonderful summer sun blazing outside it is time to think about Christmas in July.  Imagine Crafts and Stencil Girl are sponsoring a blog hop to celebrate the preparations for the Christmas season, after all there are only 168 days until Christmas!  I was inspired to re-purpose a plastic bag with handles that brought home some lovely apples last week.  It worked perfectly with Creative Medium and the Three Tree stencil.  A bit of tissue paper stenciled with the two other trees made a great liner for the transparent bag.

Skill:  Beginner

Time:  30 minutes plus ample dry time

Directions:

Step One:

Place stencil over flattened re-purposed apple bag and apply Creative Medium in Metallic Gold with a palette knife.  Remove excess and return to the container.  Lift the stencil carefully to avoid smudging the Creative Medium.  Allow several hours to dry.

 

Step Two:

Place stencil with the “Be Merry” sentiment in the position you desire and secure with repositionable tape.  Apply Creative Medium in Metallic Gold with a palette knife.  Set aside to dry.

 

Step Three:

In through the stencil with an Ink Blusher the swish tree in Memento Cottage Ivy and heart tree in Memento Lady Bug.  Add additional sentiments from stencil in Brilliance Galaxy Gold. 

Step Four

Wrap gift in matching tissue paper and layer stenciled tissue paper around gift before placing in the transparent bag.

Imagine

·      Creative Medium in Metallic Gold

·      Palette knife

·      Memento in Lady Bug and Cottage Ivy

·      Brilliance in Galaxy Gold

·      Ink Blusher

Other

·      Stencil Girl Three Trees stencil

·      Re-purposed apple bag

·      Tissue paper

·      Repositionable Tape

What would a Blog Hop be without a GIVEAWAY??!!!

We'll be picking one lucky winner
to receive $100 in Gift Certificates – a $50 Gift Certificate for StencilGirl Products and
a $50 Gift Certificate for Imagine Crafts!

Take your time and visit each blog showcased July 9, 16, & 23 and leave your comments.

The more blogs you comment on, the more chances you have to WIN!

One comment per blog please.

You will have until Saturday, July 30th at 11:59PM Central Time to leave your comments.

The winner will be notified by email and announced on

StencilGirl's Facebook page on Sunday, July 31st.

Blog Hop Order

July 9:
StencilGirl Talk
Mary C. Nasser
Kristie Taylor
Karen Gaunt
Neva Cole (YOU ARE HERE)
Nadine Carlier
Monica Edwards

July 16:
StencilGirl Talk
Janet Joehlin
Cindy Giltrap
Anna Friesen
Alison Heikkila
Martha Lucia Gomez
Roni Johnson

July 23:
StencilGirl Talk
Gwen Lafleur
Carolyn Dube
Carol Baxter
Mark Melnick
Jowilna Nolte
Terre Fry

Special Background for Furry Friend Sympathy

 It is time for a new challenge over at Ruby’s RainbowChallenges, and it is a fun one!  Create your own background, and the Design Team have come up with some lovely examples of different ways you can copy and share.  I choose to try a new to me technique using Imagine Crafts (Tsukineko) All Purpose Inks and white foam shaving cream.

The card I created is for someone who recently lost her fur-child, and needs a special sympathy card.  I was glad to have many choices for embellishments as I am a dog lover too, and have created scrap book pages for my dogs.

Step One:

Spread a thin layer of white foam shaving cream on your work surface and smooth flat.  I used a little too much and know that next time I can use less.  It is simply a carrier for the All Purpose Inks.

Step Two:

I dropped several drops of API in Black Pearl, Vegas Gold, and Chocolate over the surface of the shaving cream then drag a tooth pick through the ink until I achieved a pleasant pattern.  I didn’t want to over work the ink and make it muddy. 

Step Three:

After carefully laying the Bristol weight cardstock over the surface I lifted it and scrapped the excess off with a squeegee.  It was set aside to dry.  After drying Elizabeth Craft Designs Stitched Rectangles die cut the chosen area for the card front.

Step Four:

A section of Bristol weight cardstock is inked with an Ink Blusher and Delicata Golden Glitz.  Paula Best’s Dog Set image is stamped in Delicata Dark Brown Shimmer and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  Unity’s sentiment was stamped on the previously inked Golden Glitz cardstock with Delicata Dark Brown Shimmer and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  The edges of the were inked with Delicata Dark Brown and an Ink Blusher.

Step Five:

Die Cuts With a View brown cardstock and gold metallic cardstock were trimmed to fit the front of the card.  The edges of the brown cardstock were distressed.  Another piece of brown cardstock is used to back the dog image and the edges were distressed.  Two designs of Offray ribbon are trimmed to fit the front of the card. 

Step Six:

The embellishments are adhered to the front card panel, included the paw brads by Around the Block.  The remaining card layers are adhered to the card base. 

Please stop by Ruby’s Rainbow Challenges and share your background that you have created.  We would love to see your projects! 

This card design was inspired by the following sketch:

Retro Sketches #221

I would like to enter the following challenges

Crafting When We Can #122 Any Occasion

Polkadoodles Week 26 Add Ribbon or Twine

Stamping Sensations Anything Goes with a stamp and ribbons

Crafting from the Heart  Anything Goes

Craft Your Passion Challenge #319 Always Anything Goes