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Lisa Stein

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

Hello – Thinking of You

It’s time for our new challenge at Where Creativity Meets C9, and this month it’s embossing. Which means that everyone can and should enter. 🙂

This is a pretty simple card (which I feel like I say every time I post a card…), but I absolutely love it. And no fancy tools or equipment needed. Even better!

Here’s how I made this:

  • I repeatedly stamped the “Thinking of You” stamp from the new Concord and 9th Orange You Sweet stamp set using versamark ink.
  • Heat embossed those images with white embossing powder.
  • Once that was cooled, I blended some Wilted Violet oxide ink over the entire panel, and misted with a spray bottle.
  • Used a dry rag to wipe off the ink from the white embossing, trying to be careful not to touch the other inked areas.
  • I stamped the Hello from the same stamp set onto a circle that I die cut from the coordinating die set. I used Wilted Violet oxide ink for this, and clear embossing powder. And let me just tell you this, right now. If you have some oxide inks, you MUST go use it for embossing. It is AMAZING. Go, now. I’ll wait.
  • Then I plopped the circle die cut onto the versamark pad directly, to cover the entire surface, and applied clear embossing powder over this, repeatedly. Maybe four to five times. This ends up looking like an enamel accent, and I love it so much, I keep petting it.

Please make sure to join us this month for our challenge, it’s a super fun one, and I am certain you have the materials to make something awesome! Up for grabs are a guest designer spot and a $25 gift certificate to Concord & 9th.

 

Orange You Sweet
Orange You Sweet
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EH | SSS | C9		 Orannge You Sweet Dies
Orannge You Sweet Dies
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EH | SSS | C9		 VersaMark Pad
VersaMark Pad
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EH | SSS		 Embossing Powder, White
Embossing Powder, White
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HA
Embossing Powder, Clear
Embossing Powder, Clear
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EH | SSS		 Bristol Paper
Bristol Paper
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EH | SSS		 ATG Adhesive Gun
ATG Adhesive Gun
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EH | SSS		 Be Creative Tape, 1/2
Be Creative Tape, 1/2″
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EH | SSS
Foam Mounting Tape
Foam Mounting Tape
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EH | SSS | AZ		 Embossing Gun
Embossing Gun
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EH | SSS		 Stamp Shammy
Stamp Shammy
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EH | SSS		 Powder Tool
Powder Tool
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EH | SSS
Distress Sprayer
Distress Sprayer
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EH | SSS

Thinking of You – Winnie & Walter

It’s a new month, which means we have a new challenge at A Blog Named Hero. This month we are working with Winnie & Walter and our challenge theme is Florals.

For my card, I embossed some flower and leaf images from an older Hero Arts My Monthly Hero kit. The great thing about a card like this is that any floral image would work. And if you’ve not seen the florals from Winnie & Walter, you just must go look. They are absolutely beautiful. I chose to use a Winnie & Walter die set on this card, because I absolutely fell in love with it. Those scalloped edges? With tiny dots at each scallop? Yes, please.

I used Hero Arts platinum embossing powder for my images, and Peerless watercolors to color the florals. A pale blue Daniel Smith watercolor for the background. I also added a splattering of black soot distress ink along the background, and then some controlled circle making with the platinum watercolor from the Finetec Metallic watercolor paint set.

To finish the card I layered it using some Hero Arts Sunshine layering papers, they just happened to be on my desk, and the right color. Yay.

Make sure to join us this month for the challenge, I know you have some floral stamps that you’d like to get inky. Click here for all of information about joining.

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Simon Says Stamp

Ellen Hutson

Hero Arts

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.


Shoot for the Stars

Happy Monday to you! Today starts our new challenge at A Blog Named Hero, and this month we are collaborating with Chibitronics. They’re this neat company that makes adhesive LED lights that you can use in your paper crafting. So much fun to play with lights on cards.

Our challenge this month is interactive cards, and we’d love it if you played along. Click on this graphic to submit your entry at A Blog Named Hero.

Now, on to my card!

I even made a moving picture for you, so you could see the lights in action!

Before I tell you how I made this card, may I first recommend that you start simpler than I did? Ha. I wasn’t thinking about how this was going to actually work, I had just envisioned the final card. I knew I wanted to make a galaxy background, my first, and that I wanted to use this Hero Arts star die. So I sort of started backwards. Here’s what I did:

  • I used the silver metallic watercolor paint from the Kuretake Gansai Tambi palette and put down a base coat on a piece of watercolor cardstock.
  • After that was dry I used some Distress oxide inks to add some color to the galaxy. Dried that with my heat tool and then added some black watercolor from that same Kuretake palette. Once that was dry I added drops of white, silver and black watercolor, and kept drying and reapplying until the hot mess somewhat resembled a galaxy, from afar.
  • Let that dry completely and cut out the stars using the Hero Arts die. I also cut the die from scrap printer paper, and a piece of silver glitter cardstock.
  • Stamped my sentiment using some Alpha stamps from Hero Arts.
  • Took one of the scrap die cuts and traced it onto some scrap paper, so I could draw in the circuit, and the lights. This is a very important step, so that you have some semblance of a plan for the circuitry in your head. This will help you see what will and won’t work, circuit wise.

  • That’s my circuit, on the silver glitter die cut. I did this for two reasons. One is that I didn’t want to apply this to my card front itself, in case I messed up. 🙂 And also because I thought the glitter paper would be reflective and help the lights shine brighter.

  • This is a picture of the back of my galaxy die cut. I did a triple layer of foam to account for the height of the battery.
  • Applied the galaxy card front to the silver background. Adhered that piece to the actual card front, which was created by sponging Distress oxide Wilted Violet and Fossilized Amber on to a piece of watercolor paper.
  • Adhered the sentiment strip with some thin foam squares.
  • Layered up six stars to create a dimensional “push here” button in the lower right corner of the die cut.

  • Used a portion of an arrow stamp to point out the star where the recipient should push to turn on the lights. Notice the light pink glow around the dashed lines? That’s because I used Glossy Accents on the arrow and dashed lines, and I don’t think Distress Oxide likes Glossy Accents. No big deal, just something to keep in mind.

  • You can see the dimension from the three layers of foam adhesive in these pictures, and also the silver glitter paper.

I know this is a lot of pictures, and information, but please don’t be overwhelmed. This really was a fun card to make, and I’m looking forward to finding the perfect person to send it to, maybe for a new job, or a recent graduate.

I hope you’ll join our challenge this month. I look forward to seeing what you make.

 

 

 

 

 

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.

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