You are my happy

Happy Friday everyone!

And today is an extra-happy Friday for me because today is my first post as a member of the Crafts-U-Love Design Team.

I was lucky enough to receive a couple of cute stamp sets by Pinkfresh Studio in my DT package – I have been wanting to try these stamps for a while so I was delighted to see them!

I decided to use one of the images and do a bit of mirror stamping for my card. There are lots of process videos for mirror stamping on the internet, but I’ve included a few shots of my process here as well – sorry about the lighting in some of them!

Links to all the supplies I used are at the end of this post.

Step 1- set up your stamps

While you can buy specialist ‘mirror stamps’, all you really need is another cling stamp! I used the reverse of a Woodware stamp which was a little bigger than the swan image that I’d chosen to work with. I’m working with the MISTI as it means I can easily re-stamp the image if the ink coverage is poor after the first impression, but you can use clear blocks too, of course. I positioned the swan stamp on a piece of card in my MISTI so that I could remove the stamp from the MISTI without disrupting the placement of the stamp.

Step 2 – ink up your image stamp

I inked it a few times using Memento Teal Zeal. (I’ve found that the dye-based inks were easiest to work with when mirror stamping solid images.) Then I pressed down the cover of my MISTI so that the swan image was transferred to the mirror stamp on the cover. I carefully opened up the MISTI (the stamps never stuck together which was good!) and then removed the base card WITHOUT moving the position of the swan stamp.

I replaced it with some clean card and then closed the cover of the MISTI and pressed the mirror stamp. Then I applied even more pressure! When I opened up the MISTI, I was pleased with the coverage I got, but I wanted the ink to be darker so I carefully returned the card with the swan stamp to my MISTI and started the whole process for a second time.

Step 3 – add the second swan (straightforward stamping!)

Clean up the swan stamp, line it up in the MISTI in the regular way, ink/stamp in the usual way. I used Distress Oxide for the pink swan and stamped the image twice to get a nice deep pink coverage.

 

Here’s what the images look like together – the stamped mirror image isn’t quite as crisp as regular stamping, but that’s OK with me – I like that effect!

 

 

 

Step 4 – emboss a heart using a die

To create the embossed heart, I used the Stitched Heart die from My Favorite Things with an embossing mat under the die and one cutting plate on top and ran it through my Big Shot. I love embossing with my dies – perfect for adding a little extra something to CAS cards.

Step 5 – create a blended background

Once the heart was embossed, I made a mask with post-it notes and blended some distress inks to create the background.

TIP – to create the swan masks, I folded the post-it note in half so that the sticky end stuck together. I then stamped and cut out the image so that I ended up with two sticky masks pointing in opposite directions.

 

Step 6 – prepare the card base and assemble the card

I didn’t want to adhere my stamped panel to the glitter card so I stuck two strips of white glitter card to either side of the card base and then added an extra layer of card to the centre. Returning to my stamped panel, I added a sentiment from the Pinkfresh Studio ‘Happy’ set and then trimmed down the panel so that I would have about 0.5cm on either side of it when I adhered it to the base card.

 

Once the panel was adhered, I added a few gems to finish off the card.

I hope you found my instructions helpful – this is the first time I’ve done a detailed explanation on my blog so please let me know if I missed anything, or was too detailed! I hope to progress to video one day… baby steps!

I’m entering this in the current Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – frame it.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG

Supply List

Here are the links to the products I used on my card. Products marked with an asterisk (*) were kindly sent to me to use.

Pinkfresh Studio – Itty Bitty Elements stamp set*

Pinkfresh Studio – Word series stamp set – Happy*

My Favourite Things – Stitched Heart peek-a-boo die

Memento ink – Teal Zeal

Distress Oxide ink – Worn Lipstick

Distress ink – Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean

Brilliance ink – Lightning Black

White glitter cardstock

Papermania adhesive stones*

Bold Simple Flowers

Hi everyone!

I’m playing along with this week’s Color Throwdown challenge (coral, aqua, green and yellow) and decided to ink up the Altenew Simple Flowers set which I’ve had for quite a while but have never got round to using!

I don’t have the dies so fussy cut the images once the ink was dry – simple shapes = easy fussy cutting! if only it was always that easy, eh!

For the base, I used a background die from Altenew and adhered it to a white base card. The sentiment is also by Altenew.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Geranium blossoms

Hi everyone!

I’m so happy that Die to Die For here in the UK is stocking Pretty Pink Posh stamps and dies as I love them!

Anyway, today I used the fabulous new Geranium flower stamps and coordinating dies. I coloured the images using my Zig Colour brush markers – I definitely need more practice with them but I enjoyed playing with them.

I stuck them to a base that I’d created by smooshing distress ink and thenadded a sentiment die’ also by Pretty Pink Posh.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Geometrics

Happy Sunday everyone!

It’s time for a new challenge over at AAA Cards! This fortnight’s theme is geometrics’ and our sponsor is Uniko.

This was quite a challenge for me. I knew I wanted to use inlaid die-cutting with the cool triangle dies that I bought from Simply Graphic a few months ago AND incorporate the colour combo from this week’s Color Throwdown challenge (aqua, black and white). But the design…. well that was a real challenge! I tried so many different versions and decided on this super-CAS layout in the end. The ‘hi’ die is by Lil inker Designs and I replaced the dot above the ‘i’ with a triangle from one of the unused black die cuts to reflect the theme!

My teammates have shared some gorgeous CAS cards on the AAA Cards blog and we are also joined by Carol from CarolG Creates. She has some fabulous creations – you must check out her site!

Thanks for stopping by – I do hope you play along with us!

LucieG.

Wonderful Friend

Hi everyone and Happy Saturday!

I decided to get my Avery Elle liquid watercolours out today as it’s been quite a while since I used them.

I embossed the Simon Says Stamp Mod Flowers background stamp using Hero Arts satin pearl powder and then applied a light gold paint wash across the whole background before colouring in the image. I used two coats of each colour, although I diluted the red a lot. This is so shimmery in real life!

When the panel was dry, I cut it in half (yep, expect to see a card with the other half one day!!) and adhered it to my base card. I added a die and stamped sentiment also by Simon Says Stamp to finish off the card.

I’m entering this into the current Simon Says Stamp Flickr challenge (colour it) and also the Flower Challenge where I have chosen Challenge No. 11 – focus on background stamping.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Be the rainbow

Happy Friyay everyone!

I’m playing along with the current Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge (‘all things bright and beautiful’) and using Paperartsy stamps. I found this sentiment on one of my Paperartsy sets and it inspired the whole card. Isn’t it wonderful? Words to live by, don’t you think?

I used my Zig Watercolor brush markers to colour the image and then masked it off to create a blended/stencilled distress ink background.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.