Northwest Stamper

Tag: so happy for you

  • Playing with Designer Fabrics the “No Sew” Way

    When my downline, Pam, suggested having a class focused on using the designer fabrics; I thought it was a great idea.  She was looking for more ideas on how to use all the cute fabrics and I needed the kick in the pants to start cutting more into my fat quarters.  So, I organized a fun afternoon where I shared “no sew” ideas and Bethani, another of my downline, brought an awesome card for everyone to do as well.  Since two of the cards used Sale-a-Bration stamp sets, I thought I’d share them first.

    So Happy For You Butterflies

     

    For this card, we use the Sizzix Multi-Purpose adhesive sheets to put adhesive on the back of the blue and red polka dot fabric (we didn’t put any adhesive on the multi-colored polka dot fabric).  Then we ran both fabric pieces through the Big Shot using the butterfly Bigz die. 

    Tip:  Place the fabric on the adhesive sheet prior to running it through the BigShot.  It not only will make it easier for you to have an exact shape match without having to try to line anything up, but the BigShot will provide all the pressure you need to ensure a no-bubble seal between the fabric and adhesive!

    We adhered the cardstock and then ran a piece of cardstock vellum through a crimper for a fun little touch (ok – and really I somehow completely forgot the vellum at home and so the ladies used whisper white paper and it looked really good too).  I adhered the crimped paper in the center only.  Then used the big butterfly with the adhesive back as the main adhesive as I layered it over the crimped paper. 

    Then we used glue dots in the center of the little butterfly and the button to layer them on top.  By only using adhesive in the middle of the small butterfly and the vellum, it gave the card a little extra dimension and/or movement.  Finish it off with my favorite sentiment set right now – So Happy For You from the Sale-a-Bration catalog

     

    Sweet Summer Flowers

    This is the card that was designed and taught by my downline, Bethani Semple.  Isn’t it so fun looking!  I think she did an awesome job and though I changed my version up a little by wrapping the ribbon around the Old Olive cardstock, I now think her original version that wrapped the Night of Navy taffeta ribbon around the cardbase was better. Smile

    Anyway, for this card, we took a strip of the Sweet Stitches Fabric and twisted it (kind of like how you twisted a towel when you were a kid and were going to “snap” someone in the kitchen).  So, once you had the twisted strip of fabric, we curled that around a small stick – in this case a paper piercer – to form the flower head.  When you were finished coiling, you tucked the end of the ribbon up through the center of your flower.  Then, add some hot glue to a punched out circle of cardstock and squish in your flower head.  Ta da!  Your very own custom accent.  Totally fun, huh? 

    In this case we used the ribbon flower as a head for one of our Sweet Summer flowers, this set is also from the Sale-a-Bration catalog.

    Shop now and get your FREE Sale-a-Bration goodies

    Only 5 days left of Sale-a-Bration!  Did you get your FREE stamps?

    View the Sale-a-Bration catalog here

  • One Week Left to get Free Sale-a-Bration Goodies Like These!

    Oh my goodness, is it seriously almost April already?  How did that happen? That also means that there are only a handful of days left in Sale-a-Bration!

    This is also usually the time that I get wistful that some awesome stamps and accessories are about to be retired and I use the heck out of them to make up for lost time. And so today is no exception!  Here are two cards that I made for a card night I’m running today.  Both use the Ice Cream Parlor designer paper (that comes with the Quick Accent die cut stickers). 

    This first card here uses the coordinating Ice Cream Parlor buttons – seriously how stinkin’ cute are they?  It is taking all of my willpower not to hoard them!  Just breathe and say “they will lead a happier life when they are on a card being given to someone instead of on a shelf in a bag”.   I also used the So Happy For You stamp set…my absolute favorite from Sale-a-Bration this year.  I know this set won’t be collecting dust in my house!  Finally, though you can’t see it, we’ll be spraying Smooch Spritz in Gold Glow on the Daffodil Delight cardstock for an extra bit of fun shimmery shine.

     

    Next up, we have another example showcasing the designer paper but this time, instead of using the buttons, we are using the ribbon that comes with the buttons – the Ice Cream Parlor ribbon.  Its so bright and cheery and the perfect size to use for tons of projects.  Well, in this case, I wanted to play with the ticket corner punch and brads around the main image (the flower pot from the hostess set – A Slice of Life).  Oh yeah, and we’re going to be doing some paper piecing to get the flower pot out of the matching designer paper.  So, here ya go:

    I also decided to go outside of my comfort zone and had NO sentiment on the front of the card. I don’t know why its seems like you must have a sentiment on the front of the card, but I’m trying to convince myself you don’t.  I’d love to here what you all think!

    So, don’t miss out on your chance to get these cutie patootie buttons and ribbon pack, or the designer paper and quick accent pack; either one for FREE with your $50.  Or get both with a $100 order. Only 8 days left….and counting!

     

    Shop now and get your FREE Sale-a-Bration goodies

     

    Birthday Wishes Recipe:
    Stamps:      So Happy For You (SAB)
    Ink:  Peach Parfait marker, Marina Mist marker
    Paper:  Whisper White cardstock, Daffodil Delight cardstock, Ice Cream Parlor designer paper (SAB)
    Accessories:  Smooch Spritz – Gold Glow, Ice Cream Parlor buttons (SAB), Paper Piercing Tool, Mat Pack, Mini Glue Dots

    Flower Pot Sale-a-Bration Card Recipe:
    Stamps:      A Slice of Life
    Ink:  Old Olive, Daffodil Delight marker, Melon Mambo marker, Old Olive marker
    Paper:  Old Olive CS, Whisper White CS, Daffodil Delight CS, Ice Cream Parlor designer paper (SAB)
    Accessories:  Ticket Corner Punch, Silver Brads, Ice Cream Parlor ribbon (SAB), Stampin’ Dimensionals, Paper Snips

  • Watercoloring Techniques: Inks and Watercolor Crayons

    Each month I run at least one technique class to give folks a chance to try something different or learn new ways to use something they might already have.  Well, a recently ran my popular watercoloring technique night during which we made 5 cards, each using a different method for watercoloring.  It was so much fun to create the cards and even more fun to see the different ways people used the techniques on their cards.  This week, I thought I would share some of the cards we did at this class.

    Watercoloring with Inks

    This is your basic watercoloring technique that most people, if they have only done watercoloring one way with stamping, it is this method.  To do this technique, you want to squeeze your ink pad so that some of the ink gets deposited onto the inside of the lid of your stamp pad.  Once you open your ink pad, you will see the ink deposited on the lid and you can lift it off with a blender pen or aqua pen.  Then use your pen like it was a marker to color your card.  In this case, we did a sweet Build-a-Bear cheery card.

    Watercoloring with Watercolor Crayons

    Next we did a card using the hostess set – Because I Care and the Watercolor Crayons.  Now, this is a medium that I often completely forget about but there is so many cool things you can do with watercolor crayons.  I won’t go into all of them today because that would make this post way to long but if there is interest, I can highlight them another day.

    Anyway, for this card we did a technique I haven’t done in a long time.  We used the crayons to color directly onto the stamp rubber – placing all of our colors on the image at the same time.  Then you spritz your rubber with water and stamp.  The water you spray on the rubber interacts with the wax of the watercolor crayons to create the more classic watercolor look.

    I just had to show you too the other thing we did with the card that was just for fun and I guess thinking back on it now, was a theme with this card: spritzing things.

    We used the gold Smooch Spritz to add gold shimmer to the background So Saffron paper.  Its fairly tone on tone but is sooo pretty in person.  Here is an attempt at a photo to show you what I mean.

    Cards 3-5
    Check back later this week as I post the other cards we created in this class.

     

    Interested in trying these cards & techniques out yourself?

    In Person
    Do to multiple requests, I’m running my class again on March 28th in the Mountain View, CA area.  I’d love to have you join us. Check out the full details on my meetup site.

    Online
    Or, if you are not local, purchase the supplies for these techniques from my online store and send me an email.  I’ll send you written tutorial instructions for these cards for FREE!  Not sure what you need, email me at jennifer@nwstamper.com and I’ll send you a basic supply list and you can see what you have in your stash and what you would still need.

  • Fun Birthday Wishes Card

    While working on the sample for my upcoming Birthday Card Kit and Organizer class, I was trimming pieces from the cheerful Celebrations designer series paper.  After one of my cuts, I looked at the leftover scrap and thought it was the coolest accidental trimming I had ever done and I just had to use it in a card.  That scrap was the long skinny piece in this card with the colored circles making an awesome scallop edge down the paper.  How fun is that?

    I used the Party Hearty stamp set and the Sale-a-Bration set So Happy For You for the sentiments but mostly let the paper do the cheering in this card.   This isn’t one of the cards from my class but it definitely was inspired from some of the cards we’ll be making. 🙂

    Want to make some birthday cards with me?  I’d love to have you join us for the Birthday Card Kit and Organizer class.  If you aren’t in the area, I will also be offering this as a class by mail.  Email me for more details or to reserve your kit!

    Birthday Wishes Recipe:
    Stamps:     So Happy For You (SAB), Party Hearty
    Ink: Pacific Point, Real Red
    Paper: Bashful Blue CS, Pacific Point CS, Whisper White CS, Certainly Celery CS, Old Olive CS, Real Red CS, Celebrations DSP
    Accessories: Corner Rounder punch, 3/4″ Circle punch, 1 1/4″ circle punch

  • Ice Cream Parlor Mojo Monday Card

    Today is the story of why card making when very tired can sometimes yield not your intended results. 🙂  I am off visiting my parents in northern Washington for the week and yesterday was the day Nicholas (my son) and I got up at the very early hour of 5am to head to the airport and begin our day of flights and layovers to Bellingham.  And of course the first night in town, I’m always way too busy chatting and crafting with my mom to go to bed early.  So, today I was paying for it by being more groggy than usual when we set out to do some crafting after dinner.

    I loved this sketch that I was seeing around the internet a couple weeks back and when I saw my mom had printed out a sample using this sketch, I decided that would be a good project for me to work on tonight. 

    I grabbed my Ice Cream Parlor designer paper and Quick Accent sheets from the Sale-a-Bration catalog and some random pieces of cardstock I had packed with me and started almost random layering combinations.  I quickly settled on the color scheme of Marina Mist, Peach Parfait,Very Vanilla, and Cajun Craze,  Ok, quick side note – am I the only one who thought Cajun Craze was the ugliest color when it first came out and then after using it a couple times think it is an awesome color?  It is so perfect for fall cards and masculine cards.  Anyway….

    This is what I came up with in the end:

    Mojo ThanksCheck out this cute accent – like an epoxy sticker – by covering your image with a decent amount of Crystal Effects.

    IMG_2167 

    And this whole card would have been awesome except what is wrong with this picture?

    Wrong Fold Thanks Mojo Yes, I was very tired.  Enough so that I didn’t even pay attention to the fold of my card and proceeded to be focused on the little details and never looked back on the bigger picture pieces. 🙂  I almost tried creation some special type of card that would make this seem intentional, but as I said before I was tired… So instead, we did the traditional cut off the face of the card and layer it on a new card base.  That gave me the final version:

    Thanks Mojo Final

    I personally still like it better with Cajun Craze as the base, but I think the end result is still cute too. 🙂  What do you think?  Which do you like better?

    Ice Cream Parlor Mojo Card Recipe:
    Stamps:      Awash with Flowers, So Happy for You (SAB set)
    Ink:  Early Espresso, Daffodil Delight, Cajun Craze, Old Olive
    Paper:  Ice Cream Parlor DSP, Marina Mist CS, Very Vanilla CS, Cajun Craze CS, Early Espresso CS
    Accessories:  Paper Piercing Tool, Mat Pack, Marina Mist 1/8” Taffeta ribbon, Crystal Effects.

  • February Make-and-Take: A Sale-a-Bration Thanks

    Last night was my February meet & greet with my local Bay Area Card Makers meetup group.  We had a fun night of socializing and, of course, card making!  I always bring a free project for everyone to make, and after receiving some new Sale-a-Bration items recently, I knew I wanted to get those out to play.  So, I grabbed the new So Happy For You stamp set and the Ice Cream Parlor ribbon (check them out in the 2011 SAB catalog) and out popped this card: 

    I had seen a card made by AlyStamps and loved how the thanks from the So Happy For You stamp layered using the small oval and large oval punches.  I’ve also been obsessed with spectrum style cards right now, so I put them together.  The card is actually very fast to put together because the squares of cardstock are punched out using the 1-1/4” square punch.  We then stamped those squares using Versamark ink, so we could get the tone-on-tone look without having to switch back and forth between different ink pads.  So the only think you really have to cut is the base cardstock and the Early Espresso mat for the spectrum which I cut at 5-1/8” x 1-3/8”. 

    I love this stamp set, and will probably be playing with it a lot more in the future and the ribbon is super fun too (though I’m just dying over the buttons! love them!).  Get either set FREE with a $50 order, or get both with a $100 order!  Don’t you just love Sale-a-Bration time?

    Check out the online store and pick your free goodies!

    SAB Thanks Recipe:
    Stamps:      So Happy For You
    Ink:  Versamark, Early Espresso
    Paper:  Crumb Cake CS, Old Olive CS, Melon Mambo CS, Daffodil Delight CS, Pacific Point CS, Whisper White CS, Early Espresso CS
    Accessories:  Ice Cream Parlor ribbon, 1-1/4” square punch, small oval punch, large oval punch, Stampin’ Dimensionals