A Quick How To for Fast and Fun Foiled Accents

Today's card for ScraPerfect was inspired by the colors and sketch #70 @ Your Next Stamp. I will also be entering it @ Words to Craft By for "Vacation", Stamp, Ink, Paper  for "Travel" and @ Just Us Girls for "Trend Week: Shine". The ScraPerfect products I will highlight this time are the Best Glue Ever, the Best Cleaner Ever and the Transfer Foils.

Using a scrap of brown cardstock trimmed according to the sketch, the Copper sheet of Transfer Foil and a light coating of glue on the stamp, I applied it in a similar manner as to this video here -except that I used a sponge to apply the glue to the stamp and cleaned it up right away using the Best Cleaner Ever.

After stamping the design on the cardstock, I did give the glue a bit of a chance to set up on the paper before I laid the foil on top. I then used a small bone folder to help burnish it to be sure the whole design transferred.

The image from Unity Stamp company was inked in black on ivory cardstock and the coloring was done with colored pencils and Wink of Stella pens...Clear was used on the clouds, door and bumper while Silver was used on all the gray trim of the trailer. I added Liquid Glass to both the windows to give them the dimensional look of glass.

I used a black Micron Pigma pen to hand draw the stitched edges around the red patterned paper.  The sentiment banner was hand cut, stamped in gray ink, embellished with a large antique brad and adhered to the card front with foam tape.

The last foiled accent was added to the sentiment strip using a strip of red-liner tape. All patterned paper layers were then adhered to the A2 sized kraft card base using the Best Glue Ever. The camper focal was added using foam tape.

Inside I stamped a sentiment from CTMH in gray ink on an ivory scrap, punched the edges with a southwest corner and layered it on dark brown cardstock. I did trace over all the script lettering on the card using a StarDust glitter gel pen for added sparkle!

Hope you give Transfer Foils a try -they are very "on trend" right now and so fun to experiment with! Until next time -happy crafting with ScraPerfect!

Beach Meditations

Today's card is a tribute to the peace I find at the beach, was inspired by the sketch @ Try Stampin' On Tuesday  and will be entered @ Dies R Us for "Summertime Fun", @ Country View for "Blues and Greens", @ Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge for "Splatter It", and @ Creative Moments for "Anything Goes/Summerfun".

First off, this is an A2 size card and the blue bubble background paper came from my stash of things I made probably about 10 years ago and it was a super fun technique! To get an idea of what is involved, you can check out the process in the following video on You Tube. I don't remember for sure if I used dye re-inkers or food coloring though -but I for sure did not do mine with acrylic paint, so there are several variations. Let me know if you decide to give it a try! I did splatter some clear FSJ Sparkle Silk over the bubble background before I adhered it to the front of a white card base.

I used my old wave trimmer from Creative Memories to create the swell in the kraft cardstock for the sand and then stamped it in tan ink using the splatter stamp set from CTMH and splashed it with FSJ Gold Silk . I also die cut 3 seaweed sprigs from a mossy green cardstock before I  blended 2 colors of distress inks over them to add definition and help to make them look more realistic and dimensional.

I stamped and heat embossed the 2 large retired seashells from TAC in Silver Pearl powder on 100# Bristol cardstock and then watercolored them with 4 different neutral distress ink colors. After giving them some time to dry, I then fussy cut them out.

The "believe" die cut sentiment was cut twice -once from white shimmer paper and once from a gray metallic paper so that I could layer them and get a "shadow". I then accented the letter "i" with a tiny pearl glued on.

I used foam tape to attach the sand to the bottom of the card front so that I could tuck the seaweed and the sand dollar behind it. Before adding the shells with mini foam dots, I rolled a bit of fine jute into a loose circle and attached that to the back of the sand dollar.

On the inside, I stamped the sentiment and smaller seashells using the same distress inks as I used to watercolor the larger shells on the front and glued an extra piece of the splattered sand at the very bottom.

I love the way this card turned out so much that I may not be able to give it away, lol! Until next time~

Simple Summer Stems

Today's card was inspired by the July theme and sketch challenge @ STAMPlorations and will be entered @ Daisy Chain Challenges for "Floral" and @ Word Art Wednesday for "Anything Goes". But I did change the card sketch orientation from vertical to horizontal in order to accommodate the size of my stamped elements.

The first thing I did when making this card was stamped each flower stem (stamps are long ago retired from TAC) in black ink on white card stock, colored them using a new set of colored pencils that we are going to start use at my library classes and then fussy cut them out.

The card base itself is made from an A7 white card base and the dry embossed layer is also white and was trimmed just shy of the 5 x 7 card front size before I cut three circles out of the front of it using my CM circle template cutting tool set. After cutting the circles, I ran it through my die cutting machine with the embossing folder.

I lightly traced through the circles to the card front so that I could see what area needed to be colored using Marigold Distress ink and a blending tool then spritzed it with water to get it to react with the water droplet pattern.

Using two different sizes of foam pop dots, I added the embossed layer centered on the card front with the thinner ones and the stems with the thicker ones to help them stand up higher. 

But before I added the stems I decided they needed to be sponged lightly on the edges with a pale blue ink to help them stand out a bit more from the white background...very subtle touch, but it worked perfectly! I did also add clear Wink of Stella over the middle flowers, but sadly the camera doesn't really do a very good job of capturing that at all.

The sentiment is also a retired stamp from TAC and I stamped it on a strip of marigold cardstock according to the sketch. (Now that it's all done and the final pics are taken, I almost wished that I had done some kind of distressing to the edges of the marigold cardstock the sentiment is stamped on...so who knows, I may go back and do that before I send it out in the mail, lol! If I do, I will go back and add it at the end of this post so that you can see it too.)

The inside I kept super clean and simple with a large birthday sentiment -also retired from TAC -and a small scrap of left over marigold cardstock from the card front.

That's it for me today...until next time~

Make a Splash!

Today's card was inspired by sketch #47 @ Paper Play Sketches and will also be entered @ Craftaholics for "Beach", @ Glitter 'N' Sparkle for "Summer Sunshine" and @ My Creative Scoop where "Anything Hand Colored Goes".

The first thing I did was cut my layering papers to fit my stamp size according to the sketch- then to add some texture I ran the lagoon strip through a bubble embossing folder and then highlighted it using blueprint distress ink and the distressing dauber tool.

Next up, I used more distress ink  -that same blue and then a peacock green -to swirl over the stencil from Stamplorations on the white card front panel. the card itself is a top folding, horizontal A2 base in a dark teal/lagoon green color. 

I stamped the lovely mermaid from Stamp AnnieThing in black Momento ink so that I could color her with Prismacolor pencils and then blend it with the alcohol based Prismacolor blender pen and not have the image bleed out on me. But, I learned a very important lesson working with this stamp for the first time...don't try to draw the nose in after you've start coloring her...I used a micron pigma pen and ended up with a horrible smeared mess in the middle of her face -WAH!!! I was soooo upset...but I took a deep breath, pulled out my trusty white art eraser and went to work on the repair. At one point, I almost gave up...but I was persistent and got it to the point where I don't think you would even notice the flaw if I hadn't told you about it first -at least that is what I am telling myself, lol! Next time I will draw it in first, give it plenty of time to dry and even heat set it if necessary.

I stamped the sentiment in versamark ink and then embossed it in black powder for added dimension on the card front.

To add some glitter and shimmer, I used the Stardust Gelly Roll pen to color the pearls in her hair and the details on the starfish's body. I used the clear Wink of Stella pen to highlight sections of her hair and to color her tail fin. I glued 3 teeny tiny rhinestones over 3 of the pearls in her hair, added 3 enamel dots in graduated sizes and coated them also with the Wink of Stella pen so they would stand out a little better from the stenciled background. Before layering her on with some mini foam dots, I edged her panel with a pale blue ink for added definition.

For the inside sentiment, I stamped the brushstroke stamp from CTMH in the distress inks and sprayed it with water to mute out the colors a bit. After drying it with my heat tool, I then stamped the sentiment (from the ACMoore $ bin) in black ink over the top. Not sure who this card will go out to quite yet, but I just loved working with my first Chibi Kids stamp that I won from the very generous Stamp AnnieThing during a podcast from So Suzy Stamps earlier this summer -love those 2 gals!!! 

Until next time~

P.S. -I made a last minute edit to this card to add some sequin stars to the design so that I could also enter it on the Stamp AnnieThing FB Fan Page Group contest "Seeing Stars"...and I thought you might enjoy seeing it too, so here it is...enjoy!

Beach Dreams

Today's card was inspired by the theme and sketch @ Fusion Card Challenges and will also be entered @ The Paper Players  for "Summer Fun in the Water", @ Mustard Seed Faith for "Summer -Plans that God Will Bless", @ Make My Monday for "Travel or Vacation" and @ Cards in Envy for their "Baby Blue" challenge.

This card was designed on a white A2 top folding, horizontal card front. I trimmed my layers in size according to the sketch and sent the kraft cardstock through my embossing machine with a wooden/tree trunk like texture then used the white ink direct to paper by rubbing it all over to highlight the raised details.

The Blue patterned paper is from another of my old Basic Grey collections and the stamp sets are all older and retired from Stampin' Up and Close To My Heart. 

I stamped my images in Tuxedo Black Memento ink, colored them with watercolor pencils and blended them out using a Dove Blender pen. I truly love the simplicity of watercolor pencils and the look I can achieve is always gorgeous, yet practically effortless!!!

Before I finished adhering the layers to my card front, I wrapped the narrow light blue paper strip with some jute twine and tied it in a bow. All layers were adhered flat using my ATG gun.

This card remains simple -can you believe I used no glitter and no foam tape, yet I still love it, lol!!!

Even the inside is beautiful -if I do say so myself! (teehee)

Hope you are enjoying your summer and until next time~