Amplify! and Vertigo Magnets for Imagine Crafts

My latest project for Imagine Crafts featured on the blog today, using a very fun product called Amplify! 

 

Life is often a puzzle, piece of love here and a memory there.  I decided to re-purpose a children’s puzzle and make refrigerator magnets to hold the bits and pieces of life to the ever changing canvas of the refrigerator door.  Radiant Neon Amplify! creates a wonderful texture on the puzzle pieces which are then topped with sentiments stamped on Vertigo.

1.     I choose a puzzle that had pieces that are about 2.5” x 3”.  You can find them in thrift stores or use one that is no longer in use by your child!  Sand the surface of the puzzle so the Amplify! will adhere more easily.

2.     Add splotches of Radiant Neon Electric Green and Electric Blue Amplify! on the selected pieces.  For this technique use colors that are next to each other on the color wheel, otherwise the color will become muddy.  Make sure that the width to the puzzle pieces are not wider than the Lucite roller of the brayer, so one pass will spread the Amplify!  Gently spread the Amplify! across the puzzle.  Run the brayer on sheet of paper to use for another project.  Clean brayer immediately.  Pick up the excess Amplify! that have moved off the puzzle pieces with a palette knife and cover the thin spots.  Clean the palette knife immediately.

3.     Heat puzzle pieces until the Amplify! is cured.  It will create a wonderful marbled and textured surface.  Cure the scrap paper and use for a future project, no need to waste that beautiful texture or product!

 

4.      Stamp Technique Tuesday’s “Home is Home” sentiments on Vertigo with StazOn Azure.  Fussy cut around the sentiments.

5.     Apply Xyron X permanent adhesive to the back of the Vertigo, run a stylus around the edges of the Vertigo to pick up excess adhesive before removing the cover strip.  Adhere to white card stock.  Fussy cut around the sentiments.

 

6.     Adhere sentiments to the front of the puzzle pieces with hot glue and ceramic magnets to the back with hot glue.

7.     Hang up your favorite photos on the refrigerator with your lovely new magnets!  My finished magnets will go to work with me and hold up photos of my family on a 12” x 12” magnetic memo board as shown below.

Imagine Crafts Supplies

·      Radiant Neon Amplify! in Electric Blue and Electric Green

·      Vertigo

·      StazOn Azure

Other Supplies

·      Repurposed children’s puzzle

·      Xyron X permanent adhesive

·      Misc:  Lucite brayer, palette knife, heat gun, white card stock, ceramic magnets, hot glue gun and glue.

Thank you for stopping by!  

Robot Happy Birthday

It is time to play with a new sketch at Retro Rubber Challenge Blog, please stop by and see all the delightful creations of the design team!  Without further ado, try your hand at this sketch, we would love to see what you come up with!  Just a few rules to remember, use your retro rubber older than a year and tell us how old it is, and link up to 10 challenges or fewer.

I need to have a few little boy birthday cards in my stash for those days when my 10 year-old is invited to a birthday party, so it was time to play with a few fun robots by Sassafras “I Heart Robots” from 2008.  The best background in my stash is actually a Heartfelt Creations “Cogs and Gears” stamp from 2014, what a great stamp for this scene!

 

1.      The background Heartfelt Creations “Cogs and Gears” is stamped in Memento Tuxdeo Black on white card stock trimmed to 4” x 5 ¼”.  The edges are inked as well.

2.     Each of the robots from Sassafras “I Heart Robots” is stamped in Memento Tuxdeo Black on vellum trimmed to 4” x 5 ¼”.  The edges are inked as well.

3.     Each robot is colored from the back with Memento Dual Markers.  Tangelo, Rose But, Grape Jelly, Bahama Blue, and Bamboo Leaves were used here.

4.     The “Happy Birthday” sentiment is Studio G and is stamped in Brilliance Starlight Black and heat embossed with Imagine Crafts Copper embossing powder.  I learned something while making this card.  Did you know that if you stamp on vellum with pigment inks and are not satisfied with the results you can actually clean the ink off the vellum?  Yep!  I heated the card stock to dry off the moisture from the baby wipe and re-stamped the image.   Wahoo, project saved!

5.     The vellum is attached to the background cardstock with two nail-head brads (unknown), idea-ology by Tim Holtz Mini Paper Clips, and Sprocket Gears.  There is also a tiny bit of adhesive behind the bodies of each robot.

Supplies

·      Imagine Crafts:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Brilliance Starlite Black, Memento Dual Markers in Tangelo, Rose But, Grape Jelly, Bahama Blue, and Bamboo Leaves, and Copper Embossing Powder.

·      Heartfelt Creations: Cogs and Gears (retired)

·      Sassafras: I Heart Robots

·      Studio G:  Birthday sentiment

·      Misc:  White card stock, vellum, heat gun, adhesive.

Come join the fun and post your creation at Retro Rubber Challenge Blog!

I would like to enter my card in the following challenges:

Kraftin’ Kimmie Stamps #320 Card for a Guy

Seize the Birthday Anything Goes

Semi Finalist for Heartfelt Creations!

I truly enjoy creating with all kinds of paper, inks, dies, stamps, ephemera, ribbon, etc!  It is a joy to announce that I've been selected as a semi-finalist for the Design Team for Heartfelt Creations.  I simply love playing with their beautiful papers, delightful stamps, and intricate dies.  I've been a fan since I visited their booth at the Portland Creating Keepsakes Convention in the Spring of 2011.

I have been an avid collector of many of their collections, and love the versatility of their products.  Please take a look at a few of the Heartfelt Creation projects I have created and blogged about over the last few years. 

These are samples of the projects I submitted for consideration.  Heartfelt Creations allows readers to vote on their favorites, so please follow the link, I would appreciate your vote!  Thank you for joining me on this journey!

Project One:  Enjoy Coffee Center Step Card.  My most recent addition to my Heartfelt Creations stash was the I Want It All purchase of the Coffee Talk collection.  I am a coffee lover and am truly pleased to work with this collection and its lovely colors.  My only request would be a sentiment stamp that says “Thanks a latte” be added at some point please!  My blog highlights another card I made recently with this set.  This is a sophisticated version of a card that can be sent to male or female friend.  One of my regular card recipients is the widower of my best friend who died of breast cancer just a year ago.  It is important to me that I am able to encourage him through snail mail on a regular basis.  He is the planned recipient for this card.

Enjoy Coffee Card

Project Two:  I Believe In You Scrapbook page.  This double page layout highlights the use of a few retired products from Heartfelt Creations.  Although they are no longer available, it does showcase that a background sentiment stamp like “My Guy Pre Cut Set” can be used in unique ways as embellishments for a scrapbook page.  The colors of the “All Geared Up” paper collection were perfect for the photos.  I particularly enjoy using the Cut Mat Create die collection to design my own version of pocket page scrapbooking.  This is a clean and simple design for scrapbooking that is particularly suited to a masculine style page.  

I Believe In You Scrapbook Layout

Project Three:  Vintage Floret Fabric Flower Headband.  I recently experimented with creating Heartfelt Creations flowers in fabric and was very pleased with the results.  The headband project is an example of the type of tutorials I write so that readers can re-create the project without experiencing the pitfalls and frustrations of figuring out the new innovative technique. 

Vintage Floret Headband

Please stay tuned for the tutorials on each of these fun projects.  I also want to send out a big thank you to the Heartfelt Creations team!

Button Up for Crafting by Designs

A few weeks (oops, months) ago a card was selected for a spotlight at Crafting by Designs and they graciously asked me to be a guest designer.  Since life has been super hectic with long-term-maternity-leave-high-school-science-teacher-with-three-different-classes job, I opted to join them this week for the Button Up challenge.  Here is my take on using a few buttons to create a fun card!  Check out the rest of the creations by their magnificent Design Team!

1.     Since time was of the essence I grabbed a card making kit from my scraps stash and decided to work with My Minds Eye Magnolia Starburst collection.  All the papers are bits and pieces from the collection plus a matching scrap of light green paper left over from some previous layout project.  Great way to use up scraps and get instant mojo with matching results!

2.     All three “flowers” are created using 1” Glue Dots.  Flower one is a strip of patterned card stock trimmed with Fiskars mini scallop scissors and scored every ¼” and accordion folded into shape.  The ends are attached together and the circle gently flatten onto a waiting ginormous glue dot.  Add a bit of fiber through a coordinating button and adhere with another 1” glue dot, and finish with a strip of variegated ribbon stem.

3.     The second flower is orange ric rac folded and adhered to the glue dot.  A few gathers along the way create a nice petal effect.  The center button with craft thread is adhered with dimensional foam adhesive.  A grosgrain ribbon stem with a looped leaf completes flower two.

4.     The third flower is five sections of 1 ½” grosgrain ribbon looped and adhered to a glue dot to make five flower petals.  The center button has a bit of think ribbon thread and tied into place.  The stem and leaf is bits of green ric rac.

5.     The background is sections of the Magnolia collection trimmed to fit onto a 6 Bar cream card stock base.  The green card stock was punched with the EK Succes mini scallop punch to add a bit of visual interest.  Once the flowers are adhered into place a bit of blue ribbon is tied in a bow and adhered to hold the bunch together.

6.     The sentiment by Stampedous “Happy Messages” is stamped in Brilliance Pearlescent Ivy.  The perfect touch in a simple script to finish off this quick card.

Supplies:

·      Imagine Crafts by Tsukineko BrilliancePearlescent Ivy

·      Stampendous “Happy Messages”

·      My Minds Eye Magnolis Starburst collection

·      Fiskar mini scallop scissors

·      EK Success mini scallop punch

·      1” Glue Dots, mini glue dots

·      Misc:  buttons, craft thread, fiber, ribbon, green and cream card stock, adhesive.