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Lisa Stein

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

Happy Birthday with Glitter and Flowers

It’s the 9th of the month, which means we have a new challenge theme at Where Creativity Meets C9 and also that Concord & 9th has its new release for sale in their shop. So, it’s a very good day around here. As you can see from the graphic above, our challenge theme is Layered, and I took that to mean layers of product, techniques, and embellishments. It’s up for interpretation, so if you want to layer your patterned papers and card stocks, go ahead. Layer inks, or watercolors, yep, that qualifies too. It’s a fun challenge, and I hope you’ll join us.

This card is actually very simple, but I hope, impactful. I wanted to use that Nuvo moonstone glimmer paste as my first layer. Just took some time to find a stencil that worked, and when I didn’t find one in my stash that I loved, I made one! I just ran a die through my vagabond with some scrap paper and then used a spatula to apply the paste through the homemade stencil. I love this paste, and it dried so quickly. Granted, I’m in the desert, but still, I was very pleasantly surprised at the drying time.

While that was drying I stamped two floral images from the Wildflower stamp set. Every single time I see this set in use I fall in love with it over again. Frankly, I’m surprised I haven’t bought it twice. I’ve done that before, accidentally, with products that I love. Ha. Anyway, I stamped these onto vellum cardstock with versafine ink and then clear heat embossed them. I did the same with the sentiment stamp.

After they cooled I turned the vellum over and used Zig clean color real brush markers to color them in, on the back side. This way any brush strokes are muted by the vellum itself. I then fussy cut those out and started playing around with my layout. I used the small florals as a way to adhere the sentiment circle onto the card front, by hiding some glossy accents behind them. And then used thin foam squares to adhere the rest. Some I used two layers of adhesive, for dimension, and also to adhere to the Layered challenge. A few Nuvo drops to finish it off, and that’s my card.

There’s a close up of that moonstone paste. It’s quite lovely. I can’t wait to use it again and add some color to it with some Distress inks.

I hope you’ll join us this month for our challenge. It’s a good one, and we have prizes! A Guest Designer spot and a $25 gift certificate to Concord & 9th.


Floral Hugs

This month we are celebrating all things floral for the Where Creativity Meets C9 challenge.

For my card, I used a new to me stamp set, called “You Are Here“. It was released two months ago but I just got the opportunity to ink it up and I’m sad that I waited a month! I was inspired to make a “coloring page” for myself, and used the large floral heart stamp repeatedly on a piece of bristol paper. This involved a bit of masking, but the image was pretty easy to cut out, so don’t worry about that part. I started in one corner of the paper and worked my way around. I did make the paper about 6″ x 8″ just in case I messed up, and also so that I could choose where to cut to make it a card front.

After I finished stamping the background I realized I should think about the sentiment before coloring. And that made me want to use the new Hugs die, and only color the sentiment. I have been loving all the black and white I’ve seen people using on their cards, and wanted to try my hand at it.

I made sure to use bold colors on the sentiment as I really wanted it to pop. I layered the black and white piece onto a piece of black cardstock, so that the sentiment die cut would look like it was surrounded by black paper. The neat thing about this die is that it also cuts an outline, so I could have just cut that with black paper and adhered to the card front. A shame I only just thought of that. Ahem.

I did cut the sentiment out two other times from scrap white cardstock so that I could layer the pieces together. I just love the look and feel of that and don’t think I’ll ever tire of it.

Once I had most of the card together I decided to use a small “sub sentiment”, if you will, and embossed that on some black cardstock, and used some foam squares to add that under the hugs itself. I finished the card with some silver sequins, and also added some black scalloped edges to the sides of the card front. Those are hidden under the stamped card front, and adhered to the card base. I was cleaning out some old scrapbook stuff last month and found these odd shaped black card bases, with scalloped edges on the fold. I have no use for them but since they were black, I put them on my desk so I could use them for sentiments. It was just serendipitous that I cut the edges off when stamping that sentiment and noticed they were the perfect size. Love when that happens, and I think it adds a nice whimsical touch to this otherwise very modern card.

I do hope you’ll join us in this month’s challenge. I’m certain you’ve got some floral sets that need some use. We have a $25 gift certificate to Concord & 9th for the winner, and a guest designer spot at Where Creativity Meets C9.

Hello and Happy Birthday

It’s time for this month’s challenge at Where Creativity Meets C9, and it’s a challenging one! One Layer. You wouldn’t think it would be challenging, but oh my, did I struggle. Ha!

Here’s how I made this card:

  • Folded a piece of heavyweight cardstock in half lengthwise.
  • Place that in my Misti and figure out where I want to stamp Hello Lovely. I knew I wanted to stamp this in the same place on both ends of the card. I recommend testing this on scrap paper. Ask me how I know.
  • Stamp the floral image in antique linen distress ink. Leave the stamp in the Misti.
  • Color using Copic markers. This is somewhat of a no-line coloring technique. But when it’s been too long since you’ve used your Copics and you’re rusty, you get to improvise. See next step.
  • Cover your colored images with powder to prevent stray embossing powder from sticking where you don’t want it to stick.
  • Stamp the floral image again, over your coloring, with versamark. Apply embossing powder and heat emboss.
  • Color the florals, not the leaves, with shimmer pen.
  • Use the Say Hello dies to cut out two die cuts from white cardstock. Adhere those to each other and cover the top of them with versamark ink. Apply the same embossing powder and heat emboss.
  • Use the same die to cut out the word Hello from the front of your card. Try not to get too anxious that you’re totally going to mess this up. I can’t be the only one that does that. Please tell me it’s not just me?
  • This is the point where I realized that there is no way this card is going to be one layer. Because I need to adhere that die cut to something to make sure the card can get opened.
  • Fail the one layer challenge.
  • Stamp “Happy Birthday to You” on the inside of the card because this is actually your Mom’s birthday card. Better get that in the mail with her gift!

Lessons learned from this challenge:

  1. Even though I’m very clean and simple, one layer cards are not my forte.
  2. I must spend much more time with my Copics. The last day of Kathy Racoosin’s coloring challenge was not the best day to realize that.
  3. I type just like I talk.
  4. I need more Happy Birthday sentiments. Or even this die in “Happy”. Concord & 9th, can you please do that for me? Thanks!

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much! You should probably join our challenge. Remember, it’s one layer. Seriously, we’re sticklers for the rules, so stick to them! There is a $25 gift certificate to Concord & 9th up for grabs and also a guest design gig!

 

Supplies:


Hello Sunshine

Why, Hello Sunshine!

We have a new challenge starting at Where Creativity Meets C9 today, and it’s all about CASEing a Designer. In this case, I have CASEd Emily Midgett’s Try Something New card, which you can see here:

It’s gorgeous, right? I love the colors, and the cascading hearts. I didn’t have this stamp set, so I made do with some various floral elements, but I call them fireworks. Might be because I grew up in Philadelphia, and we take our fireworks very seriously in my hometown.

As you can see, I made a few versions of this card, in three color schemes. I wasn’t sure which one I would like, so I played around a bit, and ended up liking and finishing all of them. I really must play more often with Distress Inks, they’re so much fun and basically make you look like a crafting genius.

The first thing I did was blend three colors of distress inks onto a piece of watercolor paper. Then I found a coordinating ink color to stamp my fireworks. I did this stamping randomly, and just tried to have them fade down to the bottom. I may or may not have succeeded with that, but I am very happy with them. By the way, the green ink above is the new Fresh Lawn by Hero Arts, and I’m pretty sure everyone needs to have that in their stash. I think I’m going to just leave it on my desk, not even put it away. It’s that luscious.

I cut the Hello die three times for each card. Once I layered them all together I smooshed some versamark on top and then used the Ranger Gold Tinsel embossing powder. Which I love, and always forget I have. I like how it’s not perfectly smooth when melted, and in this case, I think it ends up looking like gold rope. As if I formed that hello freehand. I feel like I might spend some time making more of these hellos just to have on hand as an easy embellishment.

As a last step, I used the Spectrum Noir clear overlay marker to add some glitter to the stamped fireworks. It’s incredibly hard to capture with a camera, at least for me, so please imagine you can see it in this picture.

It’s time for you to join us in this challenge. You could win a $25 gift certificate to Concord & 9th or a Guest Designer spot on Where Creativity Meets C9, both fun prizes! Make sure to read the challenge rules by clicking on the graphic above. We can’t wait to see what you make!

 

Supplies: