Lots of Love

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

Today's card features some oldies but goodies.  I was able to get together with some friends several months ago, and one of them cut this background panel (an older cover plate by Poppystamps) from Simon Says Stamp Color Blend cardstock.  She was inlaying the individual hearts into another panel, and was getting ready to toss the piece, but challenged me to use it on a card.

This was really quite easy to put together.  I simply adhered it to a white card base, and then added a bold die cut sentiment.  

The sentiment, from The Stamp Market, is retired, but you could really substitute any large sentiment here.

I actually created an inlaid sentiment for this card.  It's very simple, and I have a few very bad pictures to show you how to do it.  It really just involves cutting one extra piece.  You'll cut your sentiment and shadow piece as normal, but then cut an extra shadow piece:

Then place the die for the sentiment itself on top of the shadow piece:

This is what the piece looks like when you are done on the cutting plate and removed:

Be sure to keep the extra inside pieces as you'll need those for the inlay.  Cover the original base piece you cut with adhesive, place the outline piece on top, and then inlay the individual sentiment pieces within.  It's pretty simple, you just need to keep track of all those little inside pieces.

For my card, I used black cardstock for the shadow piece and inlay outline, and Matte Gold cardstock for the  sentiment/inlay itself.

So easy, and really it's that Color Blend cardstock that really makes this one special.

Stamp Market Dies

Popping in quickly to share a card featuring some older dies from The Stamp Market.  In fact, this is another 'dies only' card.

I started with a really gorgeous cover die whose name I honestly don't remember, but I really love the design.  I wanted a tone on tone look, but I still wanted the cover die to shine.  To make it pop a little bit more, I added a layer of vellum between the cover die and the card base.  This provides a slightly darker undertone so you can really see the details of the coverplate.

Next, I die cut two of the large leaves which were placed diagonally opposite one another.

Finally, the sentiment die was cut from a light pink with a white shadow piece.  These were adhered together and popped up with foam tape.  

I did add a sweet little pink heart, from Paper Smooches, in the center of the O in love.

That's all for me today, it's been a while since I pulled out some of these older supplies, I should definitely do it more often!

Faux Coloring with SSS Vine Canopy Embossing Folder

This Vine Canopy embossing folder is another of the new products I chose from the recent Simon Says Stamp Rainbows release.  I really loved the folder I got in the last release and decided I need to keep collecting them.  

There have been some really amazing cards using these embossing folder where people color/paint the embossed images.  I am definitely going to be doing that at some point, but it's the last week of the school year for my girls and I'm prepping to be out of the office next week with the girls and my mom and sister, so crafting time is at a premium.  As a result, instead of actually coloring the images, I decided to try and simulate the look.  

This was so easy to do.  I used my Distress Markers (I honestly can't remember the last time I pulled them out!), but any watercolor marker will do.  Then I just colored the images on the 'scooped out' side of the embossing folder.  You don't have to be particularly diligent about coloring the whole thing, you just really want to get a bit of color in all the sections.  Here's a look at the embossing folder after I had finished coloring.  You hardly see the color, but there is ink in those spaces.

Then I simply spritzed the folder with water.  You want to spritz pretty liberally.  This is a look at the folder after I sprayed.  You can see that the color is a little more pronounced as it mixes with the water.  I think I actually spritzed it a bit more after I took the photo.

Then I placed a piece of watercolor into the embossing folder and ran it through my diecutting machine.  Here's a look at the finished panels.

As you can see the 'coloring' isn't perfect.  There are some areas where either I didn't have enough ink in there, or it might have bled a bit, but it's a pretty good approximation and can be done in a fraction of the time.  I do love that each panel, even if you use the same colors, will come out a bit differently.  It's a wonderful, quick technique that anyone can accomplish.

OK, on to the finished cards.  This red and green panel was the first one I created.  I actually used four markers on this card.  I started by coloring all the greens with my Mowed Lawn distress marker, and then added a bit of Forest Moss to the large leaves.  For the berries I used Festive Berries and added a couple of touches of Fired Brick as well.

The panel was trimmed down and attached to my card base with double sided tape.

The Holly Jolly die is from The Stamp Market.  I cut the base piece twice, from both green cardstock and watercolor paper.  The watercolor cardstock was adhered to the green with a slight offset.  Then the letters were cut from red cardstock and adhered on top.

The entire piece was popped up with foam tape.

For the next card, I decided to just use two markers because I figured that the water would create variations in color all on its own, even without a second shade of ink involved.  I used Forest Moss for the greens and Stormy Sky for the berries.

The panel was then adhered to my kraft base.  To finish this card off, I used some hexagon dies from My Favorite Things.  I used two sizes, cutting them from a navy cardstock and stacking them together, just to add a little more texture/interest.

The Hello die is an oldie but goodie from Neat & Tangled.  It was cut from the watercolor paper and adhered directly to those hexagons.  The entire piece was then popped up with foam tape.

These were really so fast and easy to create.  Hope you will try it!

The Stamp Market Wonderful Tiles

Happy Friday!  Today I'm sharing a card using the Wonderful Tiles set from The Stamp Market.  

These days I tend to use the MISTI for most of my stamping, but I didn't for this card.  I love how easy it was to create the pattern and line things up.  That's because the design is so forgiving, even if you don't have things lined up perfectly, it still looks great.

The tiles were stamped using Honey Drizzle, Autumn Blaze, and Firebrick ink from Altenew.  

Normally I like to stamp first and then die cut, but because the die for the flower is a single die, I die cut first and then stamped the leaves/stem with Parrot and Olive Altenew ink, and the flower with Autumn Blaze and Firebrick.

The die cut is a little more solid, but I wanted the leaves to look more delicate, so I added some fussy cutting between some of the leaves.

I used an older Stamp Market frame die to ground the flower and sentiments.  It was cut with white and then a dark orange.  The dark layers help it to stand out a bit more.

The sentiments are both from the Wonderful Tiles set.  

Thanks for stopping by, have a great weekend!

The Stamp Market Holly Jolly

I picked up these Holly Jolly stamps and dies from The Stamp Market during their recent sale and thought this would be a good way to get going on my Christmas cards.

I started by mocking up the card using a scrap piece of paper, actually this required several pieces of paper before I got a configuration I liked.  Since the stamp set has a large sentiment that matches the die cut sentiment, I stamped that in black first so I could figure out placement for the greens.  Here's what my mock up looks like.

Once I had the basic placement down, I picked out my ink colors.  I decided to go with two ink families:  Minty Mint, Sweet Leaf, and Just Green and then Firefly Grass Field, and Mountain Pine, all from Altenew. The berries were stamped with Altenew Ruby Red for both color groups.

I stamped from the lightest color to the darkest, creating one finished panel first.  Once that final panel was done, I used it as my guide, and with the help of my MISTI was able to quickly finish off the rest of the panels.

Then it was time for the die cut sentiments.  I created one card each using just the basic die cut sentiment. 

I loved the look of the finished cards, but decided to step things up a bit, using the thin line sentiment from the Stamp set to add emphasis to the sentiment.

Because the die is solid and you can't see through it, you can't stamp and then die cut the sentiment.  Solution?  My Tim Holtz Tonic Stamping Platform.  Yes, I own multiple stamping platforms, but I use them for different purposes.  I tend to use the Tonic platform for my rubber stamps, so I thought it would work perfectly for this application.  I die cut the sentiment, but left everything in place on my cutting plate.  Then I just placed the entire cutting plate into the platform, which works on the Tonic since the bottom is open.  

I lined the stamp up over the die cut piece, and inked, so easy.

For the cards with the pink die cut sentiment I used Ruby Red for the stamped sentiment, and for the red die cut sentiment I used Grapevine. 

When adhering my sentiments, to make placement easier, I started with the O in jolly because I knew it sat right around the bottom cluster of berries.  Once that was adhered, I placed the negative cut over top, using that to align the rest of the sentiment.

These were definitely on the fussier side in terms of mass production, but I really like the results and it's great to have knocked out a bunch of cards for my Christmas card pile.

More Oldies but Goodies

As promised, I've got a couple more Oldies but Goodies Christmas cards to share today.  This time I'm mixing and matching products from a bunch of different companies, but I've again stuck with the same basic formula for each of the cards.

I started by stamping my images on Neenah Solar White cardstock and coloring them with Copics.  Then I fussy cut around the top of the images, but left the bottom of the stamped image attached to the panel, kind of like faux partial die cutting.  Once that was done, I was ready to put together cards.

This first card features the Walter image from Purple Onion Designs.  He was colored with Cool Grays, and I used my trusty red combination (R22, R24, R29, and R39).  

I cut an arched frame from a piece of patterned paper using an MFT STAX die for the front of the card, and stamped/embossed some snowflakes on a panel of light blue cardstock using a stamp from Ellen Hutson's Abstract Paint Strokes stamp set.

The sentiment, from Neat & Tangled's Scandinavian Prints Christmas set was embossed on a banner from the Scalloped dies set.

The snowflake piece was adhered directly to my card base as was the little penguin, and the patterned paper frame and sentiment strip were popped up with foam tape.

The second card follows the same formula, but this one features an owl, Flora, also from Purple Onion Designs.  The owl was colored with Warm Grays and I used B32, B34, and B37 for the scarf, and E70, E74, E77, and E79 for the tree stump.

The snowflake were embossed on a piece of grout gray cardstock and instead of using patterned paper, I stamped a panel of kraft cardstock with The Stamp Market's Jumbo Plaid background using white pigment ink.

The sentiment for this one is from Neat & Tangled's Nativity Play set, and I used another of the banners from the Scalloped die set for it.

I still need a few more cards for the season, but I'm getting close to being done.  Still have lots of goodies in that stack of Christmas products that I pulled to work with and am looking forward to getting some more stamping done this weekend!

More Easy Christmas Cards with The Stamp Market and Ellen Hutson

Hi friends, I've got some more really quick and easy Christmas cards to share today.  I wanted to use my Tiny Trees sets from The Stamp Market.  

I've made sets with these trees before by varying the color of each of the trees.  This time, I wanted to leave the trees in black, but needed some color to ground them.

To do that, I used some solid images from a couple of my favorite Ellen Hutson sets.

For this first pair of cards, I used the oval image from the Abstract Paint Strokes set.

I played around with placement and overlapping, using lighter inks so that you can better see the overlap between the solid images.

Once the ovals were stamped, I went back with my Tiny Trees.  I used a MISTI for this, so I could place them all at the same time and stamp them all at once to save time.

The sentiment on the top card is from Simon Says Stamps' Holiday Greetings Mix 1 set, and on the bottom, from Hello Bluebird's Typed Christmas set.  The were both embossed in white and popped up with foam tape.

For this second set of cards, I used the large circle image from Ellen Hutson's Wonky Backdrops set.

These were done in the same manner.  I did rotate the solid stamp for each stamping to give it a more dynamic look.

The sentiments for these two again used Hello Bluebird's Typed Christmas set.

These were so easy to create, and very easy for mass producing!

The Stamp Market Christmas Card

I looked at my current pile of Christmas cards the other day and decided I needed to make at least one this week, so I pulled out the Jumbo Plaid background and Dotted Tree die from The Stamp Market, and futzed around with them a bit.  (Futz is a very technical term, FYI.)

I started by stamping the background with Gina K Whisper Amalgam ink on some Rustic Cream cardstock.  I then stamped the background using Forest Glades ink from Altenew on a green die cut tree.

I needed something to ground my tree, so I took a strip of the Rustic Cream cardstock and free hand cut a snow drift.

Originally I was going to use a "where treetops glisten" sentiment, so I decided I needed some glistening.  I added some Nuvo clear drops to the edges of my tree and along my snowdrift, and then covered those with WOW chunky glitter.  

This is where I kind of got lost in the card and didn't quite know how to finish things off.  I knew I wanted a pop of red, but because I wanted the pattern of the tree to align with the patterned background, I didn't have much leeway to work with in terms of moving things around/placement.

I ended up using an old Sizzix/Tim Holtz sentiment die cut from adhesive red foam combined with a secondary sentiment.

Part of me feels like it could still use a little something, but I also really like how the pattern subtly shows through, so I ended up leaving it as is.

The good news is that I have another Christmas card for my stash, and I used glitter for the first time in about five years, so I won't have to do it again for another five.  ;)

The Greetery Print Shop

I picked up the Print Shop stamp/stencil set and dies from The Greetery during their birthday sale.  I'd been eyeing these goodies for a while, and just couldn't pass them up any longer.

There are definitely a bunch of different steps involved in creating this floral background, but it's not onerous, and it's so much fun.  I loved seeing the background come to life!

I started by picking out three sets of color pairs for the main stenciled flowers, and then I created three different backgrounds assembly line style, pulling out additional colors as needed (all inks used are Altenew). 

For this first card, the large flowers were stenciled using Misty Morning and Nimbus.

The leaves were stamped in Moss, and the small yellow flowers were stenciled with Butternut.  The purple flowers are Grape Agate, and I used Evergreen for the foliage accents.  The accents on the dark blue of the flower are Dark Night, and I used Jet Black for the centers of the flowers.

To finish off the card, I trimmed the panel down slightly, and stamped a sentiment from Papertrey's Choose Joy set onto a banner die from MFT which was popped up over a slightly larger yellow banner.

For this next card, I used Butternut and Pumpkin Pie for the large flowers.

The greens were stamped with Olive, and the stenciled flowers were done in Crimson.  The small flower clusters were stamped with Frosty Pink, and I used Moss for the greenery accents.  For the accents on the large flowers, I used Sicilian Amber and Jet Black.  I felt like the light pink flowers needed a bit of pop to help them stand out, so I used my YR12 Copic marker to add little centers to each of them.

After trimming down the panel, I added the sentiment using the Skinny Upper Alpha Dies from The Stamp Market.  Each of the letters was cut three times from black cardstock, adhered in a stack and then directly to my panel.  

I cut two Skinny Strips Dies banners, one from white and one from light yellow cardstock.  The sentiment was stamped on the white one (I masked off the 'you' at the beginning of the sentiment), and then adhered slightly offset to the yellow one.  These were then popped up over the YOU.

This last card I was a little on the fence about.  The flowers were created using Frosty Pink and Coral Berry.

The greens were stamped in Forest Garden, and I used Misty Morning for the small stenciled flowers.  The small floral cluster was stamped with Butternut, and the greenery accents were done with Evergreen.  The accents on the large flowers were stamped with Crimson and Sicilian Amber.  Just as in the last card, I added some emphasis to the small floral cluster using a Copic marker (Y18).

To finish this one, I first cut three layers of the Scalloped Frame die from The Stamp Market.  Those were layered together and adhered to my panel.  Then I added a die cut sentiment (from the same die set), which was cut in gold mirrorboard cardstock.

I felt like the card still needed a little something, so I stamped a few of the elements, the Print Shop set includes standalone stamps so you can create the individual elements in the background.  I stamped a couple of the large flowers and one of the flower clusters and die cut them.  These were then popped up over the frame to add dimension.

This one I can't quite decide if I like, or if I need to tweak the design some.  Would love to know which is your favorite.

I'm looking forward to doing some more stamping with the individual elements - I love that those are included, it really expands the possibilities for this set!