Northwest Stamper

Tag: easy events

  • 5 Minutes to Cute–Thank You Card

    You would think that the fact that I have two toddlers running around my house would mean all the cards I make are super fast cards…. Nooooooo, that would make too much sense!  ha ha!

    But when I was working on cards for a recent card class, I came up with this simple design that is quick to make and still totally cute and pulled together (if I do say so myself!)

    This stamp image is from the Easy Events stamp set.  Of course they are retiring this stamp set on me!  I love having stamp sets that have images and sentiments for a bunch of different occasions.  Sure there is For the Birds and Embellished Events… but I have a soft spot for Easy Events.

    Anyway, I kept the overall design of the card simple and instead focused on little touches here and there

    Some piercing around the circle (using the Essentials Piercing Pack) and a Designer Build a Brad for an extra accent.  And if you are curious, I just stamped the flower image again and then colored it in with the Certainly Celery marker and punched out just the flower head to go in the center of the designer brad.

    Add some sponging and you are done!

     

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    Supples Used
    Stamps     – Easy Events
    Paper – Whisper White, So Saffron, Very Vanilla
    Ink – Basic Black, So Saffron, Pretty in Pink marker, Certainly Celery marker
    Accessories – Designer Build a Brad, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Bitty Punch Pack, Essentials Piercing Pack, Paper Piercer, 2 1/2” Circle Punch, 1 3/4” Circle Punch

  • It’s the Week of Love!

    Yup, its Valentine’s Week and so now is the time to finish up those Valentine’s that you totally meant to make and then got busy and never did.  Not that that would describe anyone writing reading this blog, right? hee hee

    Well, to kick off the week, I wanted to share a card that I received as a swap at Leadership last month.  It uses one of my favorite “love” stamps because it is so understated and pretty cute – the tree from Easy Events.

    card created by Diane Eichfield

    I was finishing creating the cards and treat boxes for my class this last weekend and as I was almost done with the design work, I ran across this stamp.  I couldn’t easily work it into my projects for the weekend, but I wanted to remind others like me out there that have this set to pull it out!

    It is perfect for watercoloring or just using your markers like Diane did.  Add to it the More Amore designer paper and a few embossing folders and some cute just exploded all over your card.

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  • Making a Perfect Mini Bow the Easy Way!

    For years, I’ve been running classes where one of the cards may have a bow on it.  And I’ve watched folks struggle with trying to make a smaller bow without either getting your fingers caught or one side of the bow threatening to come out.  Now, it is totally possible to tie it like normal, but I’ve finally put together a video on how to do it the quick and easy way that comes out perfect everytime!  No, seriously! 🙂 I have it at the bottom of this post.

    So, here is a card I made with the sample bow from the video.  Isn’t it cute?  It uses the retiring satin ribbon (seriously, I think this is the product I’m most sad about losing!) for a border and bow.

    easy events fork bow card

     

    Now if you are curious about the scallopy Saffron circles under the ribbon – surprise!  It is the retiring Pocketful of Posies designer paper and I just cut along the white lines in the paper.

     

    See, just cut and flip it over and here you go!  Oh, and another close up of the bow.perfect fork bow closeup

     

    Alright, so if you’ve made it this far, check out the video for how I made this bow using a fork… that is right, a fork.  Then leave me a comment and let me know what you thought of it!

     

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    Hello Easy Bow Card Recipe:

    Stamps: Easy Events
    Ink: Early Espresso Classic, Soft Suede Classic, Crumb Cake Classic, Old Olive Classic
    Paper: Pocketful of Posies designer paper, Perfect Plum cardstock, Whisper White cs
    Accessories: 2-3/8” Scallop Circle punch, Basic Pearls, Old Olive 5/8” Satin Ribbon, Blender pen, glue dots, Sponge Daubers

  • Watercoloring with Chalks Card Sample

    One of the things I love about teaching technique classes is that I’m often reminded of how cool a technique or a product is that I haven’t used in ages.  In this case, it is using my Stampin’ Pastels (chalks).  I ran a watercoloring technique class this weekend where we used 5 different methods for watercoloring on your card and when I do this, one of the mediums I always use is chalks.  And I think this is the first time in about a year my chalks go pulled out.  Well, it won’t be another year I can tell you that!

     

     

    I kept my cards simple so that folks would have more time to focus on the actual technique.  When I was making this sample, I was struck with how vibrant of a color you can get with chalks!  I use a blender pen to apply the color and when you are using chalks(just take the pen directly to your chalk), the pen actually picks up some of the chalk itself – so it is more like you are painting on your color.  Plus, since you are depositing a thicker layer of color (a thin layer of the chalk), when you try to layer your colors, you can get rich colors on top of another color.

     

     

    It was so easy to do, I wished I had stamped a more complicated image or tried to use more colors in my sample.  So, I know I’ll be playing with this more since I love how it turns out!  If you have any quesitons about how to use your Stampin’ Pastels for watercoloring, let me know and I’ll try to answer them in an upcoming blog post!

     

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    Watercoloring with Chalk Card Recipe:

    Stamps:  Easy Events
    Ink:  Basic Black classic
    Paper: Watercolor paper, Pear Pizzazz Cardstock, Chocolate Chip CS, Concord Crush CS, River Rock CS
    Accessories:  Concord Crush 1/2” Poly Stitched ribbon, Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border punch, Blender Pen, Stampin’ Pastels

  • Designer Frames Embossed Love Card

    I hope you had a wonderful Valentine’s Day!  My day was like pretty much everyday except my hubby was super sweet and let me sleep in a little in the morning.  He even fed Nicholas breakfast while I slept!  That was an awesome enough gift for me. Smile

    Well, as evidenced by my just getting my Christmas thank you cards out in the mail last week, I’m a bit behind on my holiday card making.  So, it really wasn’t any surprise that I didn’t get many Valentines done…and by many I mean, I got one done.  Sure, I helped my son make one for his daddy, and so I hurried to put together one from me as well.

    I saw a card on the Stampin’ Up! facebook page that used this stamp from the Easy Events stamp set in front of the lattice embossed background and it was inspiration enough to get me started.

    imageI was trying to figure out how I wanted to mat the image when I remembered that I had just received the Designer Frames embossing folders as a free Sale-a-Bration item and sure enough, the rectangle frame was a perfect fit!

    The really cool thing about these embossing folders is that since the plastic is somewhat see-through, I could stamp my image first and then line it up inside the frame before embossing.  Sure, it leaves a little bit of ink on the folder, but that is easy to clean with a little spritz of the Stampin’ Mist cleaner.

    Anyway, after embossing the image, I decided to snazzy it up a bit and used a black marker to outline the embossed ridge near the inside of the rectangle.  Then I cut out the whole frame and sponged to make it “pop” more off the background.

    Oh, and one tip I’ll give you about watercoloring your images:
    Let the ink sit for an extra minute before you start blending your colors.

    I used a blender pen, and though I know the Basic Black ink is water resistant and that classic ink dries really quickly.  I forgot that if you are going to be doing a lot of pulling the color around with a blender pen – let your stamped image sit for an extra minute to totally dry.  I started coloring in almost immediately after stamping and found that if I went over the black lines very much with the blender pen it would darken my color (in this case, I ran into it with the green of the tree).  It still looked pretty and came out fine, but I ended up stamping again anyway because I wanted a more vibrant color when I was coloring.  Letting the image sit while I cut out the frame was more than enough time to be ready to color.

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    Easy Events Love Card Recipe:
    Stamps:      Easy Events
    Ink:  Lucky Limeade Classic Ink, Cherry Cobbler Classic, Soft Suede Classic, Basic Black marker
    Paper: Basic Black CS, Whisper White CS
    Accessories:  Big Shot, Designer Frames Embossing folder, Cherry Cobbler seam binding ribbon, Basic Black 1/4” grosgrain ribbon, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Lattice embossing folder

  • Easy Events Sparkly Fun Birthday Card

    Happy Saturday!  Saturdays are for fun right?  I plan to head out to a local berry patch with my family to pick blueberries…which should be interesting with a 1 year old.  But I figure that given that he is so good at picking the berries off our bushes at home (especially the green ones!) I think he’ll do fine. Smile 

    So, in the name of fun, I thought I’d share another card we made at my recent class that I think is a pretty fun card.  For me, it was fun to make and I think it would be fun for the receiver to get too.  Gotta love when that happens!

    Fun Touch #1 – Tone-on-Tone punching

    I always forget about using tone-on-tone die cuts or punches to add a more subtle but interesting touch to your project.  In this case, we used two different circle punches (I think 1-1/4” and 3/4” circles) to punch out extra Lucky Limeade paper.  Then we adhered them to the base strip of Lucky Limeade cardstock.  I made sure to have some of the circles hanging over the edge and just went around with my paper snips and trimmed them off at the edge of the base strip of cardstock.

     

    IMG_2948

    Fun Touch #2 – Coloring with Markers

    The birthday image, including sentiment, comes as part of the Easy Events stamp set.  All the images are line art which just begs to be colored in.  And in this case we broke out the markers and went to town.  I love the fact that Stampin’ Up! offers markers that are the same colors as the cardstock.  Makes it so easy to know your marker picks will look great with your paper!

    Fun Touch #3 – Just a little bit of sparkle

    Ok, after I was done punching and coloring, I still thought it needed something.  So, what’s a girl to do?  Why break out the glitter of course!  Just grab your handy dandy 2-way glue pen and color over where you want the glitter to stick (in this case, the frosting).  Then generously dollop with some Dazzling Diamonds glitter and tap off.  Easy Peasy!

     

    So, what’s your favorite way to add a fun touch to your cards?  Leave me a comment; I’d love to hear your ideas!

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    Easy Events Birthday Card recipe:
    Stamps:      Easy Events
    Ink:  Basic Black, Real Red Stampin’ Write marker, Pool Party Stampin’ Write marker, Lucky Limeade Stampin’ Write marker
    Paper:  Whisper White cardstock, Pool Party CS, Lucky Limeade CS, Real Red CS
    Accessories:  1-1/4” Circle punch, 3/4” Circle punch, 2-way Glue Pen, Dazzling Diamonds glitter

    Easy Events Stamp Set - by Stampin' Up!