Happy Little Stampers CASE challenge

Happy New Year's to all my friends in the down under. It is already 2016 for them. For us in the states we have several hours yet.

This year brings a new type of challenge to Happy Little Stamper. It is CASE the designer challenge. Each month one of the CASE team will post a card for inspiration and you will CASE that design.

Kylie our fearless leader and owner of Happy Little Stampers stamp company is starting out this fun new challenge.

Here is her inspiration card:

What a CAS and yet classy card!

Here is a wee tutorial on how I made my card using my misti. 

I stamped my sentiment first on my card so I could work my butterflies around it. Next I placed a butterfly from HLS's birthday butterflies upside down on my misti so you have the flat bottom up. Make sense? Then I inked up the stamp with distress ink and lightly misted it.

I closed the misti and stamped the butterfly bottom.

Cool huh, you get a rough shape of the butterfly!

I positioned the second butterfly, closed my misti so it would attach. I opened it and inked this one up same as the first.

Closed the misti and stamped the second butterfly.

I repeated the steps for the last butterfly.

When I was done I inked the top of the stamp with black ink and added the definition. Cool huh? Your stamps can do double duty! 

Hope you try this cool technique and join in the fun for HLS new CASE the designer challenge!

Happy Little Stamper's Blog Hop

 Hey everyone! Exciting news! Happy Little Stampers are celebrating the first release of their stamps with a blog hop!! I am honored and thrilled to be part of the festivities. There will be all kinds of fun.

 Comment on the HLS blog and then continue on to each Designer. You MUST comment on all the blogs in the hop to be eligible for prizes.

You should have come to me from the awesome Melissa Lane's blog.   If you got lost, no worries. Just start back at the Happy Little Stampers Blog.

The blog hop will run for one week giving you enough time to hop through and check out what the designers have created.

One lucky commenter (selected randomly) will win the WHOLE release! Four sets of awesome HLS stamp valued at AUD $69.

Four lucky commenters (selected randomly) will win a gift certificate to the HLS store.

My first card uses the versatile holiday set called "Mixed Christmas Sentiments". when I first saw this set I thought what fun it would be to create a card using as many of the sentiments as I could.

Here is a video tutorial on how I made this card. 

 I laid out the sentiments to create a rough triangle shape with my MISTI.

I stamped and in embossed with white ink and embossing powder on watercolor paper. I took masking tape and masked out a triangle shape.

I gathered a variety of shades of green distress markers.

Using the distress markers I shaded the "tree" and with my waterbrush I spread the inks into each other  to create an ombre look.

I then cut the "tree" out.

  

I popped it up on my snow embossed base card and added the stump from would grain paper. I just love this clean, simple and graphic Christmas card.

I hope you are inspired by my card and enjoyed the tutorial. The designers and I are having so much fun playing with out HLS stamps. Please hop on over to the amazing Anita Bowden's blog!!!

House of Cards- Stitch it Up

 

This month at House of Cards the challenge is to "stitch it up"

 I remember years ago I had a bunch of these different wheels, but as usual I got rid of them in a purge. Of course there comes a time when I really need one of the items that was purged. That was the case with my serrated tracing wheel. Thank God for Amazon where I was able to buy one for practically nothing.

 Today I am going to show you a quick and easy faux stitching tutorial.

For this technique you need a serrated tracing wheel and a ruler. I chose a simple diamond  pattern. Using the ruler I created a serrated pattern on my base card.

I covered the entire card with the pattern. This gives the card a quilted quality.

Using my MISTI I stamped my old large lotus background stamp and the ink doesn't take the ink so the card looks like a piece of stitched fabric. So dig out your tracing wheel and try this fun faux stitching technique!

To finish this card up I took the matching stencil from Hero Arts and added some shadowing and color definition.

I cut out the middle to create the frame for my sentiment- a favorite from Tim that I use over and over.

I guess you are wondering what I did with the piece that cut out huh? 

I finished my card by putting that piece on the inside of the card with my sentiment.

Be sure to head over to House of Cards and see what the other designers have come with and be sure to play along this month.

Hope

AAA Cards is having a fun duel challenge. It is all in the interpretation.

The theme is masquerade. You can either use a mask in your creation or mask something on your work. I don't have any mask stamps, so I decided to try my hand a masking. I wanted to do something a wee bit different. Recently, Papertrey Ink had a tutorial on masking sentiments and it reminded me of a technique I used last Christmas.

First I stamped the sentiment on removable tape and I cut closely around the sentiment. I placed it on my base card.

Next, using Penny Black's pretty petals I stamped over the sentiment mask.

I then gently removed the mask.

In the open space left by the mask I stamped the sentiment.

Lastly, I colored the image in with copic markers and added some glitter, because I like glittery things.

As I looked at this card I though this would be a lovely CAS sympathy card if using sympathy sentiments. 

Check out AAA Cards and lets see how you masquerade.

On a sad note, we had to put my sweet 18 year old girl Zephry to sleep last night. God bless her indomitable soul. She will be so missed.

 

House of Cards August Challenge- Metallics

Hi everyone! Today is a new challenge at The House of Cards. We are looking at using metallics in our creations. this is kinda a blast from the past for me. 

 

I went through my studio looking for something that would work. I came across this aluminum tape and remembered a long ago technique from Tim Holtz- before he was a household name in the stamping community.  

I don't really have a name for this technique, may be some of you will recognize it and let me know what to call it.

Here is a photo tutorial on how I created this shiny silvery card.

 

 I used a roll of aluminum tape and a piece of cardboard. ( the cardboard backing from a pack of StampinUp paper worked perfect!)

Using this set of dies from Julie Ebersole, I die cut several flowers and leaves. Depending on your die cutting machine you may need an extra shim. I have a Big Shot and still used an extra metallic shim.

Create a pleasing arrangement. Then apply some strips of double sided tape on the card and adhere the die cuts back on the card.

 

Lay the metallic tape over the die cuts on the card stock panel.

Apply a second strip of the tape so the die cuts are completely covered. Yes, I know you are going to say, "Sue T. there is a piece of the die showing." I know, I trimmed that section off to keep the strips of tape to two.

Using your finger go over the tape and press the tape down on the card base, so the image appears.

 

Using a ball tip stylus go back and really define the image.

 

 

Once that is all done I highlighted the flowers and leaves with Copic markers which will dry on the aluminum tape.

 

 

Just think of all the different dies you can use this technique with. I hope when you enter this months challenge at The House of Cards, I will see some of your creations using this old school technique.