JAI #409: Just Add Eclipse Technique

Hi!

Hooray for Friday! Are you as excited as I am? The Royal Wedding is in less than 48 hours!

Let's pass the time waiting by checking out the new Just Add Ink challenge. This week Rachael has challenged us to add the Eclipse Technique to our cards.

The Eclipse technique has been taking the paper crafting world by storm - it's so popular lately! Never heard of it? You basically die cut over the top of a stamped image. Easy!

I just can't resist a lot of pop culture stuff, and when I found these Friends stamps by The Ink Road, they found their way into my shopping cart and in the post to my house. The set is called 'The One With All The Stamps', how cool is that? They are a whole lot of individual stamps that I used to make one big background. I placed the cardstock in my Stamparatus then laid the stamps all over and played until I was happy with the placement. I then used the Stamparatus plate to pick them all up, inked them and stamped all in one go.

To create the Eclipse effect, I die cut the 'friend' (what else?? LOL) from Lovely Words and then cut around the oval using a Stitched Shapes oval. This piece was then popped up using Mini Dimensionals. Can you see your favourite Friends quote on the front? How you doin'?, or Oh My God! would have to be some of the classics, and they are both on there.

I kept my two favourite stamps for the inside. I always longed to catch up with friends and drink a cuppa on that lounge. What about you?

I may have also purchased Pitch, Please from The Ink Road, so keep an eye out for that set in the future!

Now, we are just that little bit closer to watching the wedding of the year, but there's still plenty of time to pop on over to the Just Add Ink blog to check out the rest of the Design Team's cards. Will you craft while you watch the wedding? I will be sipping tea and eating scones with some of my friends. Can't wait!

Bye for now,

Tina

Goodbye Lovely Inside and Out

Hi!

I have two cards for you today, because essentially they are the same card with just a few tweaks. They both used the Lovely Inside and Out bundle, which is retiring and only available while stocks last.

This first card was a direct CASE of this card by Alison Okamitsu. I loved it so much that the only thing I changed was to use cardstock behind the opening rather than ribbon. I kept the cardstock the same colours and widths as the ribbon.

It's such a cute card, it really didn't need any changes!

I was on my own for the inside though, as Alison doesn't show the insides on her blog. I used a stamp from the also retiring Thoughts and Prayers for the sentiment, masking off the bits I didn't want.

Not long after I CASEd the card, I was planning on attending a stamping day with a group of other demonstrators. I wanted to make a little card to give to each of the ladies attending, so I decided to CASE my CASE of Alison's card.

You can clearly see the similarities and differences. I kept the layout the same, but changed the size of the card to be a 4 1/4" square.

I also decided to use DSP behind the opening, rather than ribbon or strips of cardstock. It's such a different look!

Aww, how nice is this sentiment? Perfect for a bunch of like-minded Stampin' Up! demonstrators! It's from the Bunch Of Blossoms set, which is carrying over.

Bye for now,

Tina

AWH April Blog Hop: Retiring Products

Hi!

Tonight the Art with Heart team are sharing creative projects featuring products from the Last Chance Products list. There are lots of products to choose from with retiring stamp sets, inkpads and ink refills guaranteed to be available until 7 May (and all other products while supplies last). Contact anyone on the blog hop to place your last chance order today.

I've chosen to make a card using several retiring products.

The first retiring product are the Lovely Words Thinlits. They coordinate with the also retiring Lovely Inside & Out stamp set, which I haven't used today. I selected the 'friend' thinlit for my card, as it paired nicely with the inside sentiment. One of the ribbons I have used in the top corner is also retiring - the 1/8" Gold Ribbon. It's Silver twin is also retiring.

The front of the card uses a subtle crackle paper from the Colour Theory DSP Stack. Some of the leaves from the Painted Harvest stamp set were stamped directly to the DSP. Do you ever stamp on DSP? It's a great technique that often gets forgotten. I've backed the word 'friend' with some of the Wood Textures DSP, which is carrying over to the next Annual Catalogue. Yay!

The final retiring products are two of the retiring colours. I've used Chocolate Chip (sob!) as my card base, and also for the centre of the sunflowers. Peekaboo Peach is also retiring. I used it as the top, darker layer of my sunflowers, with Crushed Curry underneath.

There's always some mixed feelings at this time of year - sadness at some retiring favourites, but also excitement over the new stuff about to hit my craft desk. I think this year I'm mostly excited, as there's lots of great stuff on the way.

Now it’s time to hop on over to our next participant, the very talented, Kimberly Hern.  

If you find a broken link or have come to this blog hop from a different entry point, you can view the participants below:

Catherine Proctor

Sharon Davern

Leanne Mitchell 
Judy May

Caroline Manwaring

Ros Davidson 

Rebecca Jacovou

Monika O’Neill

Kate Morgan

Rachel Palmieri 
Tina Gillespie

Kimberly Hern
Rachel Woollard

Alisha Watson 

Kathryn Mangelsdorf 

CTC #162

Hi!

EDIT: Oh, WOW! I was very excited to find that I had won this challenge! Thanks, CASEing The Catty Crew!

Wow, I can't believe that for the third week running I've managed to make a card for the CASEing The Catty challenge. I've really been enjoying this creative streak during the school holidays!

This card was based on the card at the bottom right of page 11 of the Occasions Catalogue. It's more of an 'inspired by' rather than a CASE, but I guess that still follows the rules of the challenge. I used a similar colour combination, a cut out element (except oval instead of circular), and the sentiment within the cut out section.

The DSP I used was from the Petal Garden DSP pack. It's a cute little 6 inch pad with a lovely mix of florals and more neutral patterns. I chose a piece that had a large rose motif in one corner and die cut the friend oval using my Lovely Words Thinlit. I then took a second piece of the same DSP and fussy cut just the roses, popping them up on top of the first piece. Next, I fussy cut some extra leaves from a different piece of DSP and popped them under the roses.

The DSP under the cut out is actually a card from the coordinating Petal Garden Memories & More pack. I liked the subtle leaf pattern better than any of the other Old Olive designs in the DSP. Finally, I used a few offcuts and a short length of Silver Mini Sequin Trim that had been floating around on my desk to create the feature at the top right of the card. The original card didn't have anything there, but I felt that my card looked a little strange with nothing in that corner.

The inside I left super simple - just some DSP offcuts to add some colour. I though that it would be nice to have a lot of space for writing about how grateful I am when I use the card!

Bye for now,

Tina