Technique – Stamping

Featuring stamping

Oh Alstroemeria

Hello everyone!

What did you do last weekend? Me? I stamped a gazillion alstroemeria and leaves using the gorgeous Japanese Lily layering stamp set from Altenew. I wasn’t going to buy it at first as I thought it’s a lot of stamping (10 stamps) for one flower. But then I saw Jennifer McGuire’s video using the stamps and I was SOLD! The stamps were quite easy to line up and I think the end result is definitely worth all that stamping! Mind you, once I had the stamps positioned correctly, I decided to make lots of flowers using them. Be warned crafty friends, if you get a card from me this month, there’s a high probability that it’ll contain an alstroemeria or three! I used Altenew inks for the images and the die cut sentiments are from Simon Says Stamp.

For the first card I did, I followed Jennifer’s stamped see-through card technique. I must say using the press n seal to create the front was GENIUS! Once I had the whole front assembled, I couldn’t bring myself to create a hinge on my stamped images as I was sure I would mess it up. So, I made a separate hinge which I then attached to the back panel. Same effect as Jennifer’s card as the back panel still created a small border around the front panel, but this was far less nerve-wracking!

 

I created a hinge for my second card as well, but this time, I just scored and folded my base card/back panel as I didn’t want to have a border like I had on the first card.

My third card was the easiest to create. I lined up and glued the images using Jennifer’s press n seal technique but then I simple attached the whole image panel to the front of a card, added a sentiment and called it done!

I had such fun creating these cards. I love alstroemerias and these images are just so life-like. And thanks, Jennifer McGuire, for the inspiration!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

 

 

Better with Friends

Happy Sunday everyone! August already! Seriously! where is this year going?

It’s time for a new challenge over at AAA Cards and our theme this fortnight is friendship. Our sponsor is CAS-ual Fridays.

There are so many ways to reflect this theme, aren’t there? In the end I decided to do some simple stamping and colouring using the Altenew Ditsy Print stamp set. I love that pretty pattern – and even though Altenew included layering stamps in the set, I wanted to use my Prismacolor pencils to colour it. I must confess, I got a little carried away when colouring this image – I lost track of time and burnt my dinner! Oops! At least it was still edible…. just!

My teammates have shared some gorgeous CAS cards on the AAA Cards blog and we are also joined by Sandie from London Days as our Guest Designer. She has some fabulous creations – you must pay her a visit!

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

LucieG.

 

Botanical tree

Hi everyone!

I’m fully embracing Christmas in July this year and today I’m playing along with the CAS Christmas challenge which has the theme of ‘poinsettia’.

I decided to use the wonderful Botanical Tree stamp set from Power Poppy. I first saw this stamp on Instagram almost three years ago and bought it after Christmas. Sadly, like most of my Christmas supplies, I don’t use it enough!

The tree is quite large – and I always find it challenging to use a large stamp on a CAS card. So I stamped the image on the left of my card and trimmed off a small part of it. Believe me, I didn’t want to cut anything off that beautiful image, but I think it actually helped to ground the image on the card.

As I wanted to focus attention on the poinsettias within the stamp, I kept the colour scheme very simple and coloured just the poinsettias and leaves at first. However, I felt the image was still unfinished, so I coloured the roses and added some sparkle to the rest of the image using my Nuvo Aqua Shimmer pen. Although this is bit different from my original plan, I still think the poinsettias are very prominent!

The sentiment is also from the same Power Poppy set.

I’m also entering this into the current Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge – Christmas in July.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Bask in your Awesomeness

Hi everyone!

I decided to play along with the current Freshly Made Sketches challenge today and paired my new Hero Arts seal stamps with a great Paper Smooches sentiment that I purchased at the same time.

Isn’t that seal cute? He reminds me so much of one I saw in Alaska who was having a glorious time showing off for us in the sun-drenched waters as our boat went past him!

Anyway, I followed a technique by Tim Holtz/Jennifer McGuire to create the background using distress oxide inks on glossy paper – I can’t use alcohol inks so I love that they showed us how to create a similar effect with distress oxides!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG

Chase your dream

Hi everyone!

It’s the 15th which means it’s time for my next Crafts-U-Love DT post.

This month, I received some butterfly themed supplies including this pretty set by John Next Door. I think I took it upon myself to try to use as many of those pretty stamps as possible on one card!

This card actually came together very quickly for me and I think I ended up finishing it in 20 mins or so! That never usually happens!

I tend to always reach for my MISTI when using clear stamps, but for this card, I used clear blocks – which are much quicker. I used distress oxide inks – love how well they stamp. To finish off the card, I added a Penny Black sentiment and a few gems.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lucie G.

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.

John Next Door Clear Stamp Set – Butterflies*

Penny Black Clear Stamp Set – Grateful Heart

Distress Oxide ink 

Brilliance ink – Lightning Black

Papermania adhesive stones*

Better than Summer Sunshine

Hi there!

It’s Wednesday which means it’s time for another Color Throwdown challenge and look at what the team has come up with this week – grey, yellow, kraft and white. Now usually I am a bit wary of yellow – I often find it a challenge when using it as the main colour, but fortunately for me my Simon Says Stamp order arrived on Monday and I was just itching to try out the fabulous Adeline butterfly, so my card evolved from that starting point.

I used an older background branch die from Poppystamps and sentiments from Simon Says Stamp. The first sentiment is white heat embossed on grey card and the second one is stamped on white card – I was so chuffed to see that the Altenew Silver Stone ink was almost an exact match for my grey card!

In addition to the CTD challenge, I’m entering this into the current Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge and the Simon Says Stamp Flickr Challenge – all have a summer theme!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.