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Lisa Stein

paper crafter, crochet addict, book reader, golden retriever lover, vegan

Season’s Greetings – CASE Me a Christmas Card

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! My dear friend Michelle Lupton does this every year, and it’s great fun to see what inspires people, and how that inspiration changes with different creators!

I was inspired by this card from Michelle, for multiple reasons. One, I love to travel. Two, I love the repeating of the die cuts, I think it makes a fun and impactful statement.

I had this awesome tree die from The Stamp Market that I’ve been wanting to use for a while. I dove right in, cut out a bunch of trees from three different colors of green cardstock. I knew this die was large, so I wouldn’t be able to fit a ton of trees on the card, but when I went to arrange them in some abstract way I just couldn’t make it work; not in a way that was pleasing to me. I dug through my patterned paper, and let me tell you, found this piece that I purchased in 2007, which is the year I first made our annual holiday cards. Why do I still have (hoard?) paper from 2007?

I have a tendency to like folk art, and some whimsy in my designs, hence this Santa paper still living with me. I adhered the paper directly to my card front, choosing to have Santa and his Elf surround my tree. I popped up the tree with dimensional foam, curled the edges around a pencil, and added some gemstones to give the card a little bling.

It’s not easy to tell in these pictures, but I used a gold Wink of Stella pen to go over my tree to make the green a little more yellow green. You can see it a little bit better in the picture below. For the sentiment I embossed a greeting from a Jane’s Doodles holiday set, and placed the banner on the card edge to edge. I’m very much in love with this very simple card, and it would be very easy to replicate for mass production.

Make sure to stop by Michelle’s blog today to see what she chose from my blog for her inspiration. I can’t wait to see!

Ranger Distress Ink Foam Storage

It’s been a while since I’ve updated the ink foam storage pages for Ranger Distress inks, and apparently I also need to update my ink stash.

Here are the new pages, with 70 ink colors. I’ve made one the same as previously posted here, and I’ve also made one without the circles of ink colors. This way you save some printer ink.

Below are links to the *.pdf files. Click on them and the page will download. Print on US Letter size paper, cut in half (or leave whole if you’re using a larger binder), slip into page protectors and add some velcro dots to store your blender foams.

2022-Oxide-ChartDownload
2022-Oxide-Chart-bwDownload

Let me know if you have any questions.

CASE Me a Christmas Card with Michelle Lupton

It’s that wonderful time of the year when my friend Michelle has a holiday card series, and I am honored to be joining her this year. The premise is that I pick a card of hers that inspires me to “CASE” it, and make my own version. Click here to see which card of mine inspired her to create something.

This is the card of Michelle’s that inspired me, since she used a stencil with multiple colors. I knew I could translate that to some new stencils I got from Right at Home. The kaleidoscope stencils had to come live with me as I collect kaleidoscopes, and have for over 30 years. Crazy that it’s been that long!

I turned the stencils into a “stained glass window” by using distress oxide inks and ultra thick embossing powder on a piece of heavy weight vellum. For each stencil that I put down, and there are five in the set, I used a combination of red inks on the center areas, and greens on the outer edges.

Once I got to the last stencil, I used a bit of gold ink for a little holiday bling. I could not bring myself to trim any of this stencil away and this card measures in at almost six inches square. For the sentiment I used a favorite stamp from an older, but amazing, set that is also from Right at Home.

Here you can see that because I only did one layer of ultra thick embossing powder, the melting is not perfect, but it really reminded me of a very old stained glass window, and it worked just as I hoped it would.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, no matter what you celebrate. I look forward to some quiet meals at home, some favorite scents and flavors, and a happy and healthy new year.

Bonus content! If you hold this up to the light, this is what you see. It would be an amazing sun catcher or ornament.

Essentials by Ellen June Release

I am very excited to be a part of highlighting this awesome new release from Essentials by Ellen! It’s available now, and only at ellenhutson.com.

I have been in need of too many sympathy cards lately and have depleted my stash. When I saw this set from Brandi Kincaid I knew it would be perfect to help me make some more, with just the perfect sentiments.

This card is actually pretty simple, but the one thing I wanted to point out was that I colored the flower image with Distress Glazes. Have you used these yet? I got four recently just to play with, and I’m going to need all of them. If you see them on sale, please let me know!

These were so easy to make and I am in love with the end result. Pretty, yet subtle, which I think is perfect for when you want someone to know you’re thinking of them, but don’t want to send one of your typical bright creations.

I stamped the flower in versafine ink and clear embossed the image, and used the coordinating die to cut it out from heavy white cardstock. Using a versamarker pen, I applied ink to the petals, stems, and stamens (I think that’s what the yellow bits are called?), and applied the distress glaze to each area. I did the stamens first, then the petals, and then the leaves and stem, heating the glaze each time. I intentionally left some uncovered parts in each area so that it wasn’t perfect. For one area of a petal that I completely missed, unintentionally, I went back after using my heat gun, reapplied more ink, more glaze, and it worked perfectly.

I let that cool for just a minute or two and then pressed the entire die cut into a versamark pad, and applied clear embossing powder over the top, to create more of a cohesive look. You can see some parts where the glaze reacted to the clear embossing powder and sort of melted together. I think it’s a dreamy look and I hope I can recreate it when I get more colors of glaze.

Once that cooled I adhered it to three more layers of the die cut for the embellishment that you see here. I had some patterned paper that I thought worked well with this and used a Lawn Fawn die cut to get the scalloped card front. Before adhering that to the card base I clear embossed the sentiment with black ink, and splattered some black watercolor and some gold spray from Hero Arts.

The entire new release is wonderful and has some amazing stamps and die cuts. I can’t wait to play with more of them.

Supplies:

Pressing Thoughts
Pressing Thoughts

EH		 Pressing Thoughts Dies
Pressing Thoughts Dies

EH		 Distress Glaze - Fossilized Amber
Distress Glaze – Fossilized Amber

EH | SSS		 Distress Glaze - Peeled Paint
Distress Glaze – Peeled Paint

EH | SSS
Distress Glaze - Speckled Egg
Distress Glaze – Speckled Egg

EH | SSS		 Onyx Black
Onyx Black

EH | SSS		 VersaMark
VersaMark

EH | SSS		 Versamarker
Versamarker

EH | SSS | AZ
Neenah 110 lb
Neenah 110 lb

EH | SSS		 Teflon Bone Folder
Teflon Bone Folder

EH | SSS | AZ		 Powder Tool
Powder Tool

EH | SSS
Be Creative Tape, 1/8″

EH | SSS
Multi Medium
Multi Medium

EH | SSS		 Foam Tape
Foam Tape

EH | SSS | AZ		 Embossing Gun
Embossing Gun

EH | SSS		 Stamp Shammy
Stamp Shammy

EH | SSS
Mini MISTI
Mini MISTI

EH | SSS		 Tweezers
Tweezers

EH | SSS		 Paper Trimmer
Paper Trimmer

EH | SSS

Challenge Me a Christmas Card – Tags

I’m so excited to be helping my dear friend Michelle celebrate her annual “Challenge me a Christmas Card” series. We decided to make tags, and I chose to make something for Chanukah. Or Hanukkah. There are multiple spellings, and if you click on either of those links you can get an explanation of what the holiday is all about.

I started by going through my stash looking for this awesome Concertina tag die from Ellen Hutson. I adore this die, and had never used it, so I was excited to have a reason to use it. (This die is no longer available for sale, but I listed an even better option in the supplies list. That die cuts four tags at once!)

Using a new stamp set from Pretty Pink Posh, and an old piece of patterned velum from my stash, I stamped the menorah image three times onto the vellum using versamark ink. I used a pencil to mark the borders of the tags that would be cut, so I knew where to stamp the images. I wanted one to be centered and the other two to be offset, just for some interest, and also so that they might fit better on their future gifts. I also die cut the tags from some white cardstock so that I could layer the vellum on top of the cardstock.

I used gold tinsel embossing powder on one of the menorahs, and then silver embossing powder on the others. I stamped the flame image in Fossilized Amber distress oxide ink and then embossed that with clear embossing powder. I love the way they turned out.

I smooshed the versamark pad onto some scrap cardstock and used both of the embossing powders to make some embossed cardstock that I could use for the reinforcements. Each tag was topped with the appropriate reinforcement and then I added some twine. I tied each of the tags differently, just for some fun.

I stamped the sentiment from the stamp set onto the back of each tag. Here is what that gorgeous sentiment looks like. I stamped it onto a blank tag just for ease in taking pictures.

No matter what you celebrate this holiday season I hope that you have a wonderful and joyous celebration.

Supplies:

Happy Hanukkah
Happy Hanukkah

EH | SSS		 Shipping Tags
Shipping Tags

EH		 Onyx Black
Onyx Black

EH | SSS		 VersaMark
VersaMark

EH | SSS
Fossilized Amber
Fossilized Amber

EH | SSS		 Hero Arts Clear
Hero Arts Clear

EH | SSS		 Hero Arts Silver
Hero Arts Silver

EH | SSS | HA		 Tinsel - Gold
Tinsel – Gold

EH | SSS
Neenah 110 lb
Neenah 110 lb

EH | SSS		 Twine
Twine

EH | SSS | AZ		 Powder Tool
Powder Tool

EH | SSS		 Glue Pen
Glue Pen

EH | SSS
Embossing Gun
Embossing Gun

EH | SSS		 Scissors
Scissors

SSS | AZ		 Stamp Shammy
Stamp Shammy

EH | SSS		 Mini MISTI
Mini MISTI

EH | SSS
Tweezers
Tweezers

EH | SSS		 Paper Trimmer
Paper Trimmer

EH | SSS

Ranger Oxide Foam Storage Tip

Edited July 21, 2018 to include the latest release of Oxide inks, and future inks. Why waste printing ink? So you’ll have a few blanks until the rest of the Oxide inks come out later this year.

A few months ago I saw this amazing idea from Lizzie Jones for storing blending foam. I was inspired by that to make my own system for Distress Oxide inks. And since I just got the most recent dozen that were released, I updated my system, and thought I’d share the pdf files here for anyone that might want to make use of the same format.

Here’s a peak of the instagram post that I shared earlier today, and since people seem interested, I’ve linked the files below.

A post shared by Lisa Stein (@lstein0) on

oxide foam storage pages 1 and 2

oxide foam storage pages 3 and 4

oxide foam storage pages 5 and 6

You should be able to click on those links above and the pdf will open in a new window. You can either print from there or save to your computer. The first time I did this I printed on heavy Neenah cardstock. This time just copy paper. They’re not being used except to represent a color, so no need for the good stuff. 🙂

They are set up to print on US Letter paper. Just print, and then either cut in half for use in a half sheet size binder, like I use, or slide it in to a full sheet page protector for a letter size binder. But if you do that one, don’t tell me, I have orientation issues. 🙂

Let me know if you have any questions.

Oh! And these are the velcro dots I purchased for this. Seems like a lot, especially since I’m only using the “rough” dots, but maybe someone crafty will come up with a use for the other side!