Northwest Stamper

Tag: masking

  • Clean & Simple Card with Lovely as a Tree

    Clean & Simple Card with Lovely as a Tree

    clean-and-simple-faux-torn-edge-single-layer-cardSo yesterday I shared a Christmas card with Lovely as a Tree, so today I thought I’d share another idea with the same stamp set only NOT Christmas!  It uses another fun techinique – Faux Torn Edges – that I love for my clean and simple cards.  It is also great if you are doing a challenge for a single layer card too!

    How to do Faux Torn Edges:

    1. Rip a piece of paper, preferably something thin like copy or printer paper, so you have the torn edge pattern you like.
    2. Place the torn edge across your cardstock and hold in place with washi tape or post-it notes.
      TIP – you may want to secure your cardstock in place as well using washi or post-it notes.
    3. Using a yellow Stamping Sponge, tap the sponge into the ink color of choice and then starting on the copy paper, gently swirl the sponge in a circular pattern onto the the cardstock.
    4. Try to always go away from the torn edge (so from copy paper to cardstock) and not the other way around so you get a crisp edge.  Sponging towards the the copy paper edge can sometimes catch the copy paper and bend, rip, or get ink under the paper where you don’t want it.
    5. If desired, stamp an image over the masked area so that the stamped image is on top of the sponged color and will stop at the torn edge.
    6. Remove the torn paper and finish the card with any additional stamping you may want to do!

    clean-and-simple-single-layer-card-close-upIt is a really easy technique but can produce really WOW cards!  Here I just kept it simple with a little piece of burlap in the upper corner and on of the Halloween Nights Enamel dots.  See, Halloween stuff doens’t have to be just halloween!

    Easy, peasy, done!

    PS – Heads up about the Year End Clearance Sale!

    So, I didn’t know this sale was coming until yesterday when Stampin’ Up shared that it was coming with demonstrators.  I don’t know what will be in the sale but I do know this:

    • 15267554_10209710056660667_5857946819420869390_nItems will be up to 60% off
    • There will be updated Clearance Rack items, some discounted Annual catalog items, and the full list of Holiday catalog items that are going to be discontinued with many of them being discounted too!
    • You CAN add any of these items to a starter kit (so it is a great time to join because you’ll also be able to sneak peek the Spring catalog and preorder in December too!)

    If you bought something in the Online Extravaganza sale last week, DON’T WORRY!  They told us that anything from the Online Extravaganza sale that was retiring in December and so may be on the retiring list set of sale items, they would not be more discounted in December (and may not even be discounted as much).  So you will know you got the best deal possible on those items. 🙂

    If you want to be one of the first to know what is in the sale, you can check back in my Online Store a little after midnight MST tonight.

    Have the list delivered to your inbox!  Make sure you are on my mailing list and I’ll be sending out the list to everyone there once I get it!

    UPDATED November Hostess code – FUYTBWNK

    NWstamper signature_thumb[9]

    order online button for sig 3_thumb[4]

    Project Measurements

    • Very Vanilla cardstock – 4 1/4″ x 11″
    • Burlap Ribbon – 3″

    Project Supply List

    Lovely As A Tree Wood-Mount Stamp Set

    $28.00

    Lovely As A Tree Clear-Mount Stamp Set

    $20.00

    5/8" (1.6 Cm) Burlap Ribbon

    $7.00

    Halloween Night Enamel Dots

    $4.00

    Very Vanilla 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock

    $9.00

    Old Olive Classic Stampin' Pad

    $6.50

    Soft Suede Classic Stampin' Pad

    $6.50

    Moroccan Designer Washi Tape

    $8.00

    A Dozen Thoughts Clear Stamp Set

    A Dozen Thoughts Clear Stamp Set (retired)
    $19.00

  • Build Your Own Stamped Palm Trees and New Weekly Deals

    Build Your Own Stamped Palm Trees and New Weekly Deals

    My family and I are off on an adventure this week as we take our kiddos to Legoland California!  My son is a HUGE lego fan… seriously, he only just turned 5 and we have a ridiculous amount of legos already. Smile  So while we are exploring here in sunny California, I thought I’d share a card idea for bringing the sunny beach to you!

    See?  It’s a build your own palm tree! Smile 

    Tips for making this card:

    • To make your palm tree, grab your Too Kind stamp set and instead of making flowers, turn one of the little stamps upside down and stamp in brown to make the tree!imagesffds
    • Make yourself some whispy clouds by punching out the top to the cupcake builder punch (make it really easy on yourself and do it out of a post-it note, making sure to punch some of the adhesive part).  Use that as a mask as you sponge Soft Sky ink over whisper white cardstock.  Move the cloud around to make as many or as few as you want!
    • To get your beach, just grab scraps of Crumb Cake cardstock and tear the tops off.  Layer on the front of your card for a one of a kind beach!
    • Add your favorite sentiment and embellishments and there you go. Smile 

    And in case you didn’t see these yesterday, new Weekly Deals are up too! 

    11010580_10204053349717405_2159798156492252091_n

    Shop the weekly deals here

    And with that, we are off to see and explore amazing creations with Legos!  If my son in the Legoland Hotel lobby is any indication, this should make for an awesome adventure for my kiddos. Smile 

    2015-02-17 20.16.46

     

    order online button for sig 3_thumb[4]

  • Cute and Quick Masking Card using Oh Hello

    I love my monthly technique classes, not only because I love sharing new ideas with the folks who come craft with me, but it forces me to remember some techniques I haven’t tried in a while and come up with new takes on old methods.

    Today’s card is one we created recently in my Misting and Masking technique class. 

    This was a simple card that is a lot of fun to do!  And it uses 3 different styles of masking!

    1.   Using a mask so your stamp pattern only shows in the pattern of the mask
    (in this case, I die cut a flower from the Floral Fusions framelits and laid the paper with the flower shaped hole over my card front.  Then I stamped using the chevron oval from the Oh Hello stamp set.  Ta da!  A custom chevron flower!)

    2.  Using a cut out piece of paper to prevent part of the stamp image from leaving ink on your card front
    (in this case, I used the die cut flower from step one and laid it over the stamped chevron flower.  Then I could stamp my arrow “leaves” and have them appear to be hidden behind the flower!)

    3.  Use a post-it note to cover up part of a stamp’s image before inking
    (in this case, I covered up the “oh” part of the “oh hello” stamp so that I only inked up the Hello part.  This works a bit better than inking up the whole thing and trying to clean off just the “oh” part because often you don’t get it all or you still have some weird colored cleaner on the stamp that transfers to your image exactly where you don’t want it.)

    See, made entirely by tweaking up the Oh Hello stamp set:

    Oh, Hello Clear-Mount Stamp SetAnd the cute Sycamore Street ribbon and button bundle from the Sale-a-Bration flyer (yup! that is right!  Get all the ribbon and buttons you see here FREE with your $50 order!)

    Sycamore Street Ribbon & Button Pack

    So, give it a try and I hope you had as much fun as I did!

     

    To Order Stampin’ Up! Products Anytime, click here!

    Are you earning your Northwest Stamper Rewards?

    Every order gets you closer to your FREE stamp set! Click here to learn more!

    Hello Masking Card Recipe:
    Stamps:     Oh Hello
    Ink: Crumb Cake, Raspberry Ripple, Gumball Green
    Paper: Whisper White cs, Raspberry Ripple cs, Crumb Cake cs
    Accessories: Sycamore Street ribbon & button pack*, Glue Dots, Big Shot, Floral Fusion framelits

    * item that is available for free with a $50 order through 3/22/2013

  • Masking with Framelits–A Super Pretty Effect!

    So, since folks were pretty positive about my masked Summer Starfruit card in my last blog post, I thought I would share another fun card using masking.  I got this at convention last summer and thought it was just the prettiest!

    card created by Candee Smith

    Label Framelits from Stampin' Up!I love how she used the fact that you get 6 different sizes of the framelits to create a perfect mask for her stamped image.  If I were to do this (and you know I will be doing it! Smile), here is what I would do:

    1. Pick your smaller (inner) size framelit and cut it out from a card front sized piece of scrap paper.  So, roughly 4.25” x 5.5”.
    2. Set aside the cut out piece…won’t need it for this project.
    3. Grab the piece of paper with the label hole cut out of it and lay it over a piece of paper for stamping on.  Tack it down some how, like with tape or a post-it note.
    4. Sponge all along the edges of the hole so you get the border on your stamping paper.
    5. Stamp your design if desired overlapping the edge of the scrap paper hole.
    6. Remove the scrap paper mask.  Cut out your stamped image using the next size bigger framelit.
    7. Woo hoo!  You are done!

    Ok, now I’m totally inspired now.  And I still need to get some swaps done for Leadership this week, so I think I’m going to take this idea and go play today!  Hope you got some inspiration too!

     

    To Order Stampin’ Up! Products Anytime, click here!

    Need a Spring Catalog or Sale-a-Bration flyer?

    shoot me an email to jennifer@nwstamper.com with your contact info and I’ll make sure one will be making its way to your mailbox shortly!

    Are you earning your Northwest Stamper Rewards?
    Every order gets you closer to your FREE stamp set!Click here to learn more!

  • It’s a Scrappy Blog Hop For the New Year!

    Last month I was totally honored to be asked to participate in today’s Scrapbook Steals Blog Hop.  They were going to be featuring page design templates from Kiwi Lane Design Borders and, since I had never tried them out before, I thought it would be a blast to give it a go.  Especially since I knew I would have all my new Spring Catalog goodies to play with too!  The awesome thing is that these templates can be used with anything you have in your stash, so use them on old – new- thick – or thin!

    Well, I have 3 projects for you today and hopefully you will get some new ideas for trying out border templates as well as catch a glimpse of some new Spring catalog (and Sale-a-Bration sneak peek!) items in my samples. Smile

    1.  The 12×12 Scrapbook Page

    You may not think much of using a template for a 12×12 layout, but the neat (at least to me) part is that the templates I was given to use are the “Madison Avenue mini” templates, which means they are only 8” long!

    What is a 12×12 purist to do??

    Well, after careful investigation of my templates, I discovered that two of them fit together seamlessly to give me a 16” curve to do with as I pleased!

    extending kiwi lane templates

    So I found an interesting curve line, used Post-it notes to tack down the templates, and traced away!  I decided to cut out the vintage-y flower pattern from the Twitterpated designer paper… and what you can’t tell at all because of how I ended up placing my pictures, is that the curve lines exactly match at the top and the bottom of my page.  I meant to do more with that but the matting for the photos got too big.  Oops!

    I loved the line though, and so I decided to ruffle some ribbon, following the curve at the top of the page.  To achieve the look, I just ran some tape along the same path as the template that I used to trim my paper.
    TIP – If you are going to do this, you really want to use Sticky Strip / red backed double sided tape.  I tried using my ATG for the adhesive thinking that was really strong but in less than a week, the ruffles were popping up and off the page.  So go for the tough stuff!!  Go redline/Sticky Strip!


    (psst – this may be one of the free ribbons coming available during sale-a-bration. ;)).

    And since I wanted to do some journalling but thought a straight edged rectangle would look wrong in my curvy layout… I grabbed one of the templates I used for the top of the page and used the curve to cut my journalling block.

    using kld templates for journaling 

    Psst – check out more SAB sneak peeks!  (Button, stamps, punch!)

    2.  An 8×8 Layout

    Since my templates were the mini version and 8” long, I decided “what the hey!” and figured I’d put together an 8×8 page.  The curvy lines made me totally think of hills and so I thought it would be perfect for a park picture of my daughter Caitlin from this summer.

    I couldn’t decide where to do my journalling so I, again, went with the whimsy and wrote it out following the curves of my hills.

    And if you are curious, the background paper and the sun are all created out of the new Tea for Two designer series paper.  The circle that is the middle of the sun is an element on one of the patterns, so I just cut out two circles and chopped one up into wedges – pizza style – to make the sun’s rays.  I LOVE how it turned out!

    3.  A Card with Masking

    Finally, I wanted to break out of the scrapbooking shell and use my templates in a totally different way.  Since sets contain “A” and “B” pieces that are just a rectangle with the patterned line cut through the middle, that means you can just slide your A and B sides a little apart and make a cool area for masking!

    I did my masking on grid paper so I could slide the templates down the same amount each time so I could make my own background pattern.

    masking with KLD templates

    And speaking of backgrounds, can I share that this card was totally inspired by my 2012 Stampin’ Up! convention bag sitting on the floor across from me?  Smile  Can you see the similarities?

    image

     

    So, my projects are simple compared to some of the amazing scrapbooking layouts you will see with these templates, but I love how easy they make a touch of whimsy in my projects!  I will also admit that I get a lot of my scrapbooking ideas from Scrapbook Steal’s weekly MidWeek Mojo sketch challenges; but I didn’t realize how much mojo you can get from stacking and playing with these templates that give you lots of fun shapes and curves to work with!

    Alright! So I’ve shared a lot with you today and I hope you enjoyed them!

    Please, leave me a comment and let me know what you think of my projects and first foray into designing with border templates!  Plus, Scrapbook Steals will be giving away a $20 gift certificate to one lucky commenter from across all of the blog hop sites.

    And now, check out some of the other awesome ideas shared by some SUPER TALENTED ladies!  Thanks again, Kerys, for the invitation and the chance to participate in the blog hop this month!

    Go hop and be inspired!

    To Order Stampin’ Up! Products Anytime, click here!

    Need a Spring Catalog or Sale-a-Bration flyer?

    shoot me an email to jennifer@nwstamper.com with your contact info and I’ll make sure one will be making its way to your mailbox shortly!

    Are you earning your Northwest Stamper Rewards?
    Every order gets you closer to your FREE stamp set!Click here to learn more!

     

    12×12 Scrapbook Page Supplies
    Stamps:     Pretty Petites (SAB), Ciao Baby, You’re Amazing
    Ink: Basic Grey, Calypso Coral, Pool Party, Crumb Cake, Versamark
    Paper: Twitterpated designer series paper, First Edition specialty dsp, Basic Grey cs, Whisper White cs, Calypso Coral cs
    Accessories: Sycamore Street ribbons & button pack (SAB), Petite curly label punch (SAB), Natural Trim ribbon, heat gun, white embossing powder, embossing buddy, glue dots, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Madison Ave mini Kiwi Lane Design border templates

    8×8 Scrapbook Page Supplies
    Ink:     Lucky Limeade ink pad & marker (for journaling)
    Paper: Tea for Two designer series paper, Lucky Limeade cs, Melon Mambo cs, Basic Grey cs
    Accessories: Bitty Punch Pack, adhesive pearls, Sticky Strip, corner rounder punch, sponge dauber, Madison Ave mini Kiwi Lane Design border templates

    Convention Bag Card Supplies
    Stamps:     Made For You
    Ink: Basic Grey, Summer Starfruit
    Paper: Whisper White cs, Vellum cs, Summer Starfruit cs
    Accessories: Two-Tone Ribbon (Basic Grey/Basic Black), adhesive rhinestones, glue dots, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Madison Ave mini Kiwi Lane Design border templates

  • A Sponged Easter Egg Card

    Happy Easter weekend everyone!  I hope you have sunshine and wonderful events planned with family and friends this holiday weekend.  Today we are getting ready to go out for egg hunts and coloring some eggs at home with family.  But before we head out, I wanted to share the first eggs I colored this year…. for a card. 🙂

     

     

    I had this idea to use sponging to create eggs for my card and so I grabbed my handy dandy Extra-Large Oval Punch.  Then I punched out an oval on scrap paper and pulled a pile of ink pads and sponges and got to work masking my Easter Eggs.  Of course, I made the eggs on a piece of scrap white paper and then had to design the card around the colored eggs. 🙂  But I added some paper for grass and then threw on some Early Espresso baker’s twine and the adorable Twitterpated buttons.

     

     

    So, consider this my Easter card to you. 🙂  Have a great weekend!

     

    To Order Stampin’ Up! Products Anytime, click here!
    Are you earning your Northwest Stamper Rewards?  Every order gets you closer to your FREE stamp set!  Click here to learn more!

    Sponged Easter Egg Card Recipe:

    Stamps:  Delightful Dozen
    Ink:  Chocolate Chip classic, Pool Party, Pear Pizzazz, Wisteria Wonder, So Saffron, Peach Parfait, Blushing Bride
    Paper: Daffodil Delight CS, Pear Pizzazz CS, Whisper White CS
    Accessories: Twitterpated buttons, glue dots, Early Espresso baker’s twine, yellow sponge

  • Simple Is Beautiful Too

    When looking at card samples online and at events like the Stampin’ Up! convention, its easy to be drawn in to the “WOW!” cards.  You know, the ones that surely took someone multiple hours to make and look like they should be hung on a wall as art and you could never bear to throw away.  You know which cards I’m talking about. Smile

    I love the inspiration and ideas from these cards, but often I don’t get the time to play with these ideas and replicate many of my favorites.  So, I get extra excited when I see some cards that are clean and simple, and ideas I can try in minutes at home.  Here are a few examples of some of my favorites from Convention this year:

    card by Julie Gunhus

    card designer unknown

    card by Nancy Knowles

    card by Rhonda Wells

    Each of these cards has a cool touch, from the Fancy Fan letterpress plate (which I’m now convinced that I have to have!), to heat embossing, to glitter and shimmer.  But none of the layers is elaborate or particularly fussy.  So, you could make these at home in no time at all!  Got to love that.

    I’m still trying to figure out how to get the best lighting with my new photo tent, so sorry if some of the details are hard to see; but let me say these are all striking in person.  Hope you got some fun ideas to try!  If you have any questions about how any of these cards were made, just let me know!

    On a side note, I’ve had some folks ask me in the past about what was the standard card size and how to cut their paper for a typical card base.  So, I’ve thrown together a photo-walkthrough to answer just that question.  So, if you are interested, you can check it out here  – http://www.nwstamper.com/how-to-cut-a-standard-card-base/ and I’d love to hear if you have any feedback on how it could be better or more useful!

    Shop now and start earning your free stamps with NW Stamper rewards!

  • Sponging up a No Layer Card

    Each week, the Late Night Stampers group has some kind of challenge.  This week was particularly intriguing to me as the challenge was to create a single/no layer card.  When I first read this, I thought, “won’t these cards be boring?”  Well, boy was I wrong!  Folks came up with all kinds of cool ways to make a card look interesting without needing lots of layers of paper and embellishments.  So, I took up the challenge and decided to create one myself, no paper layers, no embellishment layers, just paper and ink.

    Here is what I came up with:

    Using scoring lines and sponging, this card turned out much better than I expected.  I scored the outer frame at about 1” in from the top and the bottom of the card and about 1/2” in from the sides of the card.  Then I scored the inner frame about 1/4” in from the outer frame.  I then masked at the inner frame lines and sponged with Pink Pirouette ink and stamped my flowers using Blushing Bride and Rich Razzleberry.  Next I masked the inner part of the score lines so I could sponge the outer areas with Pink Pirouette and finished it off by sponging the edges of the card in Rich Razzleberry.

    Tip:  Did you know that it is easy to score at precise measurements that don’t go to the edge of your paper using a paper cutter and a bone folder?  For a frame like I created above, grab a paper cutter that uses a grooved track for cutting like this one and position your paper to the dimension you want to score.  So, if you were scoring the sides of the frame above, you would put your paper at 3 3/4” so that you are scoring 1/2” in from the side of your 4 1/4” card front.  Then use the bone folder instead of the cutting blade and use the ruler on the cutting track to help you score the length you want – so in this case, from 4 1/2” to 1”.  Keep doing that for each side of your frame, and voila!  You are done!

    Need a bone folder or a grooved paper cutter?  You can order them here!

    No Layer Card Recipe:
    Stamps:      Petal Pizazz, Just Believe
    Ink:  Pink Pirouette, Blushing Bride, Rich Razzleberry, Old Olive
    Paper:  Whisper White CS
    Accessories:  Paper cutter, bone folder, sponges

  • Technique night – Masking and Reverse Masking

    Last night was my August technique night with my meetup group and we focused on masking and reverse masking.  For those of you not familiar with masking, this is the technique for using paper to cover (or mask) the area you don’t want to get inked.  So, in this first card we did, you stamp the colored cupcake on your paper and then stamp another copy of the cupcake on scratch paper.  Cut out the scrap cupcake and place over your original stamped image and then stamp your next cupcake, overlapping the scrap paper and your original image.  This gives the illusion of one cupcake being in front of the other without seeing the overlapping ink.   We also used the scrap cupcake to mask the frosting area when we stamped the candle so that you could choose the height of the candle and not have it overlap the top of the cupcake.

    Next we did reverse masking.  This is where you cut out your scrap image and set your image aside and use the cut-out frame to let you add ink to the inside of the framed area.  In this case we sponged first and then while still keeping the frame in place, stamped our leaves images. This card was inspired by a card I found on the Stampin Up demo resource – Stampin Cconnection.  The origional was created by Allison Ohran. 

    Finally we did one more card that combined both techniques.  We used reverse masking to make the sun and then placed the cut-out circle back on the sun and a scrap cutout of the treetop to mask the areas before sponging our sky.

    Now, some tips:

    Tip: When cutting out smaller shapes and circles, post-it notes work great for giving you something that can stick in place and then come up without leaving a mark.  For bigger shapes and frames, use a little bit of Dotto.  This adhesive lets you put your mask down and then pull it up an rub off any adhesive that gets left behind.

    Tip: While I normally recommend stamping on Whisper White cardstock because it holds ink much better than standard white cardstock and computer paper, for the scrap image you are going to use for your mask, I would recommend in that case to use computer paper.  Because the paper is thinner, you tend to be able to get ink closer to the edge of your mask and so get a cleaner look.

    Card Recipes:

    Cupcake Card Recipe
    Stamps:     Party Hearty
    Ink:  Early Espresso, Crumb Cake
    Paper:  In Color pattern pack – Hostess set, Daffodil Delight CS, Whisper White CS, Pacific Point CS
    Accessories:  Peach Parfait marker, Daffodil Delight marker, Pacific Point marker, Early Espresso marker, Dotto

    Thank You Card Recipe:
    Stamps:      Just Believe
    Ink:  Wild Wasabi, Basic Black
    Paper: Wild Wasabi CS, Basic Black CS, Whisper White CS
    Accessories:  Dotto, Basic Black 1/4” grosgrain ribbon, snail adhesive, Stampin Dimensionals

    Thinking of You Card Recipe:
    Stamps:      Bouquet Bunch, Teeny Tiny Wishes
    Ink:  So Saffron, Old Olive, Bashful Blue, Soft Suede
    Paper:  Bashful Blue CS, Soft Suede CS, Old Olive CS, Whisper White CS, So Saffron CS
    Accessories:  Adhesive back pearls, Dotto, 1 1/4” circle punch