Stamps, Paper, Scissors

It's so dark in here...

It's raining again.

Seems like it's been raining for a long time.

Dark.

Dreary.

Bleah.

Let's light a few candles shall we?

Ingredients: (all SU!) Stamps - Big Birthday Candle; Paper - Washington Apple DSP, Riding Hood Red, Pumpkin Pie, Bashful Blue, So Saffron, Whisper White; Ink - Basic Black, Riding Hood Red, So Saffron; Other - Vintage Brads, Basic Small Grommets (Occasions Mini), Fine Supernova Glitter, black gingham ribbon, Basic Black marker, dimensionals, eyelet border punch....and the SECRET INGREDIENT.

YES IT IS SO TOTALLY AWESOMELY GOJUS!!! (YILM!) But it gets better!

Is it any lighter where you are now that these candles are lit? Funny thing...

when I see candles like this....

I really really...

want...

a....

BIRTHDAY CAKE TO GO UNDER THEM!!!

Stampin' Up! told us earlier this month that we will be getting some new dies from Sissix. These are not exclusive to Stampin' Up!, but Stampin' Up! *will* be the first to release these dies. They will be available for you to purchase as of April 1st, but us demo types got to preorder them with our Occasions mini stuff. There are two dies:

I ordered the Three Tier Cake Pop-Up Bigz XL die, but not the 3-D Ball one. I received it last week and finally got to play with it this weekend.

Another view:

 

I was thinking of posting a tutorial for it, but the die itself comes with very good instructions with pictures of each step, so why reinvent the wheel? However, there were things I figured out about how to use this die, so I am here to give you tips about this die and pop-up cards in general.

•  The first thing to remember is that this is going to be a thick card. You will have to have a padded envelope to send it in or hand it to the person you are giving it to.
• The cutting area of the die is longer than 12", so you will need to use more than one piece of cardstock.
• In the instructions they tell you to use strong double sided tape and they show tape like our Sticky Strip. LISTEN TO THEM. There are some areas of the cake that could do with regular adhesive, but for the most part, you need the strongest tape you can get. I tried to get away with using ATG, which is pretty strong stuff, and ended up have to scrape it off and put Sticky strip in instead...it's no fun trying to do this when the areas you are working with are small and the thing is already constructed. Oh, well...mother always said if you can't be a shining example, at least you can be a horrible warning!
• The candles are pretty delicate after they are die cut, so put them on at the very last. The flames on mine are a little wobbly on their wicks thanks to all the messing about I was doing as I was retrofitting the adhesive in it. There are also a bride and groom shape...I'm telling you, I've got so many ideas running through my head for this die, I'm about to EXPLODE!!!
• The cake is not going to look perfect, with all it's layers sitting nicely and the top of the layers smooth and straight. It's gonna be a bit wonky looking. But if you go with that look, it ends up looking QUITE impressive!
• The hard part of a pop up card is that if you put the pop up part on a liner and then put that liner inside a card front, either the inside buckles as you close it or the you can't open the card all the way because the outside is bigger than the inside. Both of these options SUCK, honestly, but I have figured out a way out of this problem!!! I'm SO CLEVER!!!(YILM!) And I'm also SO NICE that I am going to tell you what it is! What I do with my pop ups is I adhere just the bottom part of the liner to the inside of the card. Then...well, lookie:

This is the top edge of the card.



TADA!!!

  

The upper part of the card liner is NOT adhered at all to the outside of the card. Instead I created a pocket on the upper edge, trimmed about 1/4" off the top of the liner and then slid it into the pocket. When the card is closed, the edge of the liner slides further into the pocket. When it is open, it slides out a little, but not enough to come OUT of the pocket!

Oh, one more thing about this card:

This is one of the new small grommets in the Occasions Mini. To make it into a glitter button, I inserted the grommet, filled the inside with Crystal Effects, then sprinkled some pumpkin colored glitter from the new Fine Supernova Glitter assortment. Is this not just the most GOJUS idea?!?!? (YILM!)

Thank you, thank you! It isn't easy being this wonderful (YILM to the MAX!), but I can just about manage it...with a little chocolate, that is!

It goes without saying that you would only give this to one of the most wonderful people in your life. Some people just are not worthy of a card like this. Exercise caution and restraint. And if you make one of these and keep it all to yourself to light up those rainy days, well, I won't tell on ya. Ta!

Two more projects for class tomorrow!

I got lots of stamping done yesterday evening, after a gala dinner celebrating Laurel's first place in the school spelling bee (which means she will participate in the Scrips city-wide competition!) and Emily's second place in the Science Fair. Woo hoo!!! We had saganaki at our favorite coney island restaurant, something we had never tried before and it was delicious! ANYWAY:

Ingredients: Stamps - Embrace Life; Paper - Ginger Blossoms DP, Groovy Guava, Chocolate Chip, Pretty in Pink, River Rock, Shimmery White; Ink - Versamark, Ruby Red, Chocolate Chip, Regal Rose, Groovy Guava; Other - Detail White EP, 3/16" corner rounding punch, ticket corner punch, Chocolate Chip taffeta, Pretties Kit, Chocolate Chip marker, sponge wedge, dimensionals.

Isn't it GOJUS!!! (YILM!) I started out following someone else's sketch, then jettisoning it to do my own layout. The flower stamp is stamped and embossed with white EP, then painted in using ink pads and my aquapainter. It was one of those ideas I got after I went to bed...frustrating, because I usually lie there and think about stamping when I should be sleeping or...well, concentrating on OTHER things! Hee hee...

But that's not all there is to my creative genius!!!

Ingredients: Stamps - Always; Paper - Soft Sky, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Rose Red, Whisper White; Ink - Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Rose Red, Whisper White, Versamark; Other - Stampin' Pastels, Fiskars Mini Scallop scissors, Flower Fusion, Old Olive Brads, Pumpkin Pie grosgrain, dimensionals.

MORE GOJUSNESS!!!! (YILM!) I knew when I looked at the heart that Poppin' Pastels (pastels/chalk over Versamark) would be the perfect way to get a lovely result. A few pointers:

• I use eye make-up applicators when I apply pastels. That allows me to load a nice amount onto my applicator and the flat surface is perfect for applying the pastels. The teenie little ones that come with the pastels are good for teenie areas, but I really like eye make-up applicators...much better than Q-tips!
• After you stamp with the Versamark, rub the applicator's flat side into the pastel cake, picking up enough to cover it and then some. Then rub very gently with the flat side over the Versamark. If the applicator seems to drag, you don't have enough pastel on your applicator! Put some more on when it starts to drag. Don't do it HARD...rub lighter than you would putting make-up on your eye lid.
• You can keep going over the image, adding more pastel until you get the amount of color that you want. You get a much better result by adding color gradually and gently than trying to force things by rubbing too hard, which will smear the Versamark and make a mess.
• You will get some hazing around the images, which I think adds to it. So consider that as you are putting color down. After you have finished, you can use a Swiffer cloth to pick up some of the loose pastel, but some hazing will still be there (as you can see in my sample.) You can erase it, if it bothers you, with the eraser that comes with your pastels or with a Staedtler white plastic eraser...those are my favorite erasers to keep on hand.

I love the color scheme, which was inspired by the colors in the Flower Fusion...I have to say, I LOVE these little felt flowers...they don't look just cut out, but the have a die cut look that makes them very clean looking instead of snipped with scissors.

I have one more card/project to create for tomorrow night, then it will be a massive clean up of the stamping classroom and environs, the cutting of cardstock and pouring of M & M's into candy dishes. So I will say farewell for now and will have another project to show off tomorrow! Tah!

Tips for working with color

And a very Merry Christmas to me!

Yes, I have succumbed to the siren song of the Copic markers!

I had a 30% off Dick Blick coupon, money from my in-laws for Christmas (you may recall how they provided my Cuttlebug for me last year the same way, bless them) and a Dick Blick store nearby. They sell this wallet of 24 Copic Sketch markers for $99.99...so I got them for $69.99. I had hesitated before because of the price; Prismacolors and Trias are about 1/2 the price of Copics and I wondered if the Copics were twice as good as the Prismacolors or the Tria markers I started buying with my preferred member coupons from Dick Blick BEFORE the stores stopped carrying them (coupons are only good on in-store purchases.)

Having used these to color I can say...maybe not TWICE as good as Tria's or Prismacolors, but they are easily better in a lot of ways. I love the brush end...it actually FEELS like a brush. The colors are vibrant, though no more vibrant than Tria's. I don't like the blender quite as well as the Prismacolor one I have; that one has a fine tip that makes it quite easy to work in small areas. And the Copics do not have a fine tip like the Trias, which actually have three tips on them, a broad chisel tip, a fine point which lifts off to reveal a slightly thicker tip underneath (it works marvelously...you have to wonder how the ink gets form the tip beneath to the fine tip, but it does!) However, with the Copics, I found a very light touch with the brush end gave me almost as fine of a line, but not quite.

One thing I learned right away is to make sure that the cap on the opposite end of the one you are using is on tight. Because if it isn't, the ink will start flowing quite rapidly out the brush end of the marker as you are drawing with it!

On the whole I'm happy with my purchase (especially at the price I paid!) There are tons of colors to add to my collection as I can afford them plus these can be refilled (YAY!) and you can even get blank ones to fill with  your own ink mixtures. And there is an air brush system you can buy to go with them. Don't know that I'll ever buy it, but it's nice to know it's there.

SO by now you're wondering if you get to see an example of these great markers? Lookie!

Ingredients: Stamps - Sunday International Anthony & Burt Frosty Friends, SU! Circle of Friendship; Paper - SU! Cool Caribbean (retired), Gable Green, Real Red, Lovely Lilac, Whisper White, K & Co. K-Ology 8 x 8 paper pad; Ink - Adirondack Pitch Black; Other - Copic Markers, Prismacolor colorless blender, 1/2" circle punch, 1" and 1 1/8" circle punches, dimensionals, red gingham, purple grosgrain (SU! retired), dimensionals, Sakura Stardust glitter pen.

This stamp is one I bought when purchasing some EZ Mount from Sunday International. If you are a demo or teacher, you can sign up to receive a discount on your orders from SI, but you have to have a $50 initial order.So in looking for things to fill up my first order (naughty...I should have just ordered a bunch of EZ Mount!) I ended up buying a couple of stamps because they do have some really cute ones, particularly this Anthony & Burt stamp!

And now for my tips for working with color! I often see people buy the Copic markers or using Prismacolor pencils and they can do a beautiful job of adding color to an image, but it still looks flat and lifeless. What is going on and how can color be used more effectively?

• Leave some open white spots here and there. It really helps draw the viewers eye across the image and makes it appear alive rather than flat and static.
• Sometimes shading your image with a shade darker than the main color you are using can work, but usually it looks flat. To perk up your color, use the color on the opposite side of the color wheel to add a little more shadow to your image. You will be amazed to see your images jump off the page at you!
• And lastly, layer your colors...use more than one color when coloring in a broad area. When you blend your colors, either with a colorless blender, a blending pencil or Gamsol, you'll find that the individual colors don't blend together so much as distribute themselves evenly in the area you blend...kind of like a Pointillist canvas where you read dots of color placed together as one color rather than two or three. But because those little dots of color are there, the whole area SINGS instead of looking flat.

Here's a close-up of the above card:

If you look closely, you'll see that the sky is not brought right up to the edge of the snowman everywhere...I left a little white spot here and there.

You'll also note that there is a bit of orange shading the sky and the snowman, both of these are blue images, so orange being on the opposite side of the color wheel, adding just a touch here and there really punched my color up!

Zooming out:

You'll note that the background is layered color...purple and warm light blue. This makes the background look like there is DEPTH there rather than just looking flat. I added yellow on top of the green I colored Anthony.

Anthony is shaded in dark green with just a touch of red here and there. His scarf is red, so there is a tiny bit of green shading to help it pop.

And the only thing I didn't apply this tip to is the ear muffs...and you'll note that they don't look quite as lively as the rest of the image. Just a big of yellow on the very edge, blended in with the colorless blender, should fix 'em right up, but since they are not a large part of the image it isn't absolutely necessary for me to fix it. Unless it bugs me. Which now that I've told you about it...it probably will!

Hump Day and a Cool Tip!

It's Hump Day and I think a little Rubbahdultery is in order, don't you?

I mean, I've been getting all these new stamps in and don't you wonder "has Jan even stamped ANYTHING with those Cats Pajamas stamps?" I've had them for a while now and remember...I have a RULE and the RULE says, "USE it soon after you get it, right?" So without further ado, my first Cats Pajamas creation:

Ingredients: Stamps - Cats Pajamas; Ink - Palette Noir, SU! Real Red, Soft Sky; Cardstock - Soft Sky, Blue Bayou, Whisper White; Patterned Paper - Creative Imaginations (Rick Purdue); Other - ribbon - Michael's, Sakura Stardust Clear Glitter Pen, Prismacolor Pencils, Gamsol, snowflake eyelets - Oriental Trading.

I had a ton of fun with this one, hunting out my most retro papers. I found this one in the stash and was thrilled that it matched Soft Sky and Blue Bayou so nicely. After I finished stamping and assembling, I realized it needed some glitter and jumped at the chance to pull out the Stardust pens that I bought last year from Starlitstudio on Ebay. I think it's STINKIN' CUTE!!!! (YILM!)

And now for the Cool Tip. You remember what my stamping table tends to look like, right? Like this:

One of the problems with this style of stamping (which I call Sem-I-Controlled Chaotic Order or SICCO for short), is that clear stamps do not really fit into the scheme of things. That's one of the things that has held me back from purchasing many sets of clear stamps, the idea that unless I clean it right after I use it and put it away, it will be buried in this mess somewhere and get stuck on the back of something else, or, heavens forfend, fall on the floor to be run over by my desk chair and suffer irreparable damage. Then GENIUS STRUCK!!! SHAZAM! I thought of the answer!!!

It is a stand up display frame, such as you might buy at Office Depot, to put a picture in or a flyer to display at a craft show. I have a number of these I use for my business; they are great for putting instructions for self-guided make and takes in or promotional flyers for displays. They are also made out of ACK-rylic, so clear stamps stick just ducky to them. So I stamp, I peel and I toss it on this thing. I can see where it is, it doesn't get buried, and I can even clean them right on here before I put them away. I am SO SMART!!!! (YILM!!!)

I hope this helps my fellow SICCOs out there!

In other organization news, I finally organized my clear and unmounted stamps:

I was amazed that I had so many (and I know there are those who are saying, "Is that all?" and you have my condolences!) and this isn't including the few CTMH sets I have, which have their own storage system. I had bought all of these jewel cases for making projects with them and didn't use them, so it was nice that I finally USED something I bought instead of buying a whole box (just to save money, you know!), using two and then stashing the rest! I have only 6 of them left now...which tells me I have to buy more unmounted or clear stamps so they won't go to waste!

Right?

Whaddya do with the small open ended envies?

You may have noticed in our catalog this year that SU! has what are called open-ended envelopes. These envelopes, rather than opening at the top, open at one end (the short end of the rectangle.)

So, like the SU! cult member I am, I bought some of these things in July under psychic compulsion from my cult-mistress, Shelli Gardner (may she live forever), and they have sat in my drawer doing nothing ever since. I had some time to kill on Halloween after the kids were in bed, so I pulled them out, thinking I'd make a card or two that would fit in the envelopes.

The envelopes are 3 3/8" x 6 3/4". So the card would need to be 3 1/4" x 6 1/2" (6 1/2" x 6 1/2" before folding.) So I cut a piece of cardstock that size and got going. I chose another In Color combination off my chart (Real Red, Cool Caribbean, Not Quite Navy, Certainly Celery) and decided to do a donut card. I decided to pull myself away from the awful fascination of Flannel Plaid (undoubtedly another psychic compulsion from Shelli Gardner (may she live forever)) and with mighty effort, I pulled another background, Dotted, out of the stack and got going.

When I'd almost finished it, though, I realized, with one of those blinding flashes of intuition (they don't come too often with me, so I cherish them when they do) that this card was just a little bigger than a currency note! In fact, I pulled out a $20 bill and it was just a little narrower than the note...hmmm.....

Immediately, I abandoned my card base for one that had a flap that would fold in to hold the bill. I realized that I had to keep the adhesive to a very thin strip on the edge of the folded up flat or there wouldn't be enough room to put the bill in. I cut the flap on an angle so I only had to adhere one edge. And here is what I ended up with:

Now, I was mighty pleased with myself for actually doing something that used something that I hadn't done anything with since I bought it and was in love with the color combo and the Dotted background, as well as my own cleverness. Plus I thought it was STINKIN' CUTE and thought I should submit it to SU! (which I am going to!) And I looked at the interior and another blinding flash of sheer genius (yes, I love myself..heh heh) overcame me. How cool it would be if you could see the bill inside from the outside. And once you punched a hole through the front of the card, surely there would be a way of making the image on the bill, showing through, part of the design.

Now, one thing you may note about our currency is that those guys (Lincoln, Hamilton, Jackson et al) don't look very cheerful at all. They look like they are stern fathers of our country (or yelling at you for spending them so freely, I don't know which.) None of which is very humorous or cheerful when presenting their faces as a gift. So I decided to lay on the whimsy and another brilliant flash of genius overcame me (yes, I love myself) and I got to work. I was up until 12:30 AM working on this...I tore it apart more than once trying to get it just right. And here it is:

Cold Play is the set I used to make this along with Riveting and the Dotted background. Isn't it cute? Even cuter than the other one. STINKIN' CUTE, in fact (yes, I love myself.)

I hasten to add that the Hamilton, on the $10 bill, does not work well with the same layout that works for Jackson ($20) and Lincoln ($5)...he is over too much to the left. And Washington is still dead center like he has been for years, so you would have to make major adjustments for him. Though if you have a habit of giving away $1 bills for presents, you have other adjustments to make, IMHO! And his head isn't as big, so it would look not quite in proportion. As far as bigger bills, though I don't normally have them around, my husband was gracious enough to lend them to me long enough to see that Grant ($50) and Franklin ($100) work just fine in this holder too (Franklin looks especially hilarious)...and if you are in the habit of giving those away for Christmas, I'd like to get to know you better!

So now they are in an envelope on the way to SU! and I have made myself another one of each to keep.

To make either one, cut your card base 6 1/2" x 9 1/2". Score at 3 1/4" and 6 1/2". The remaining 3" is for the flap.

To determine where to put my hole for the Cold Play card, I took the 1 3/8" circle punch, punched a piece of sticky note out and put it over the part of the bill I wanted to show through the hole. Then I put the bill on the cardfront in about the place I thought it would rest inside the card and took my paper piercing tool and poked a hole through the center of sticky note, through the bill and through the cardstock. I then removed the bill, put the sticky note back on the cardstock and punched using the punch trick. Then I used the punch trick again to make the holes in the flap (which I turned into a slot) and the matt on the front of the card.

I know, I know...you are saying, "But JAN!!! You already did this, so just tell us where the hole needs to go so we don't have to do that!!!" You guys...you want everything! But I am so nice (along with being a genius...yes, I love myself!) that I will tell you:

For Mr. Franklin, Mr. Grant, Mr. Jackson, and Mr. Lincoln, the left edge of the hole needs to be 2 3/16" from the left side of the cardfront and the bottom of the hole needs to be 5/8" from the bottom of the cardfront. If you are making a holder for Mr. Hamilton, move the hole to 1 7/8" from the left side. And if you are making one for Mr. Washington...let's not go there.

I used a Scotch ATG gun to glue my flap down, but if you don't have one of those, use sticky strip...and use half the width...otherwise, not enough room to slide your bill in.

So now, you can make one of these, insert the bill of your choice and send me one for a present!!!