New Year Celebration with Lovely Lily Pad

Today is the last day in North America to order the Japan-exclusive stamp set New Year Celebration. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I wasn’t sure how to use some of the images, because they are not something I used all the time. (Or see all the time; I have searched on Google and have seen some of these images used on kimono fabric, fabric hangings, fans, etc.)

However, the “bamboo leaves” sparked a memory of something creative we have done as kids, and that led to how I used it on this card.

I thought it would be appropriate to combine it with the Lovely Lily Pad images (free! during Sale-a-bration).

Stamp: New Year Celebration (available until today), Lovely Lily Pad (SAB)

Ink: Shaded Spruce, Pool Party, Soft Sea Foam, Gray Granite, Crumb Cake marker, Rococo Rose reinker, Frost White shimmer paint

Paper: Whisper White, Crumb Cake, Pool Party

Accessories: Lily Pad dies (SAB), Rectangled Stitched dies, Aqua painters

Did you see the bamboo that I created? It was really simple to do.

Using the brush end of your Stampin’ Write marker (I used Crumb Cake), make long strokes on your cardstock. It doesn’t have to go all the way across. Just stop where it’s comfortable. Add a mark across where you end (for the “seam” of the bamboo), then continue across the cardstock piece. You may need a 2-3 strokes for each section for the width you want. The variations in color give it natural shading. I love it! If you are not confident you can make straight strokes, just make them shorter. Then, when you are done with creating the stalks, stamp some leaves at the seams. Make sure that if you have more than one stalk, don’t put the seams in the same place. 🙂

The Lovely Lily Pad stamp set is one of the Reversibles style of stamps that Stampin’ Up! is creating. That means you can stamp the detail, flip the stamp, then stamp a solid design. Most are not designed to match exactly. Instead, they “coordinate”.

The lily pad is pretty symmetrical, so the reversible solid, while not perfect, looks pretty decent. For the water designs, I stuck with stamping the detail and reverse in different spots because they ARE different enough. I knew it would bug a little, so I wanted to avoid that feeling.

For the large lotus that I used, the reverse solid image definitely does NOT line up either. I opted to color it another way. It was largely an experiment, but I like how it turned out.

I used a plastic lid from a paper can, such as Pringles (mine was actually bread crumbs), as a palette. I combined two drops of glycerin, one drop of reinker, and Frost White shimmer paint (approximately the same volume as an ink drop). Stir to combine. The glycerin will help the mixture stay fluid and not dry out.

After letting the outline dry a bit, I used an Aqua painter to apply color with the above mixture. I used quick strokes and tried not to repeatedly apply color to the same section. Also, I tried to keep from using too much water. (If you see a lot of water, blot aggressively and start again.) I started my brush stroke at the bottom of the petal and flicked toward the tips. I have seen pictures in which the lotus petals are white at the tips, and I was going for the same effect. I like the sparkles. Definitely a quick way to get cool color.

Cute Critter Birthday Card

I recently sent out a birthday card, but didn’t take pictures. So, I went about recreating details of it (I used a template from a magazine, so didn’t want to re-publish without permission). I used the same ideas of the background, the focal image, and the sentiment.

Stamp: Bonanza Buddies, Around the Corner

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Mango Melody, Coastal Cabana, Gray Granite

Paper: Whisper White, Daffodil Delight, Pool Party, Mango Melody, Coastal Cabana, Calypso Coral, Flirty Flamingo, Birthday Bonanza DSP

Accessories: Bonanza dies, Starburst punch

Here’s a closeup of the focal image and sentiment. I nested the two sides together. Hopefully, it’s not too confusing for a recipient.

The sentiment is from Around the Corner. I found it difficult to use as an actual corner stamp, and figured out a way to use it: cut it into two pieces!! That way, you can use it straight (parallel).

I removed the ink from the dot between the “it’s” and “your”, so there wasn’t a stray mark when I cut it all up.

Stamp in the corner of a scrap, including the “highlight” stamp. Remove ink from dot for both stamps.

Cut off one part of the sentiment, then the other.

Voila! The sentiment is in two strips!

For the banners across the front of the card, I attached to one side of the gatefold first. Trim off what’s hanging off. Glue the cut piece to the other flap, matching up with the other half of the banner. The banner is about 3-1/2″ long, which is how wide the DSP is (before I cut in half to add to each side of the gatefold).

Here is the inside of the card.

I added two banners in some of the same colors I used on the front. Instead of adding another koala, I added a toucan instead.

The toucan is die cut from the DSP. However, he faced the other direction. Not to worry! Line up the die on the other side of the DSP, while holding up to a window (or light box if you have one). Hold in place with some removable tape, then run through your diecutting machine. Perfect!

Here you can see what I cut out. Since the toucan had a party hat before I cut him out, I had to add one back. (and die cut a bit wonky, oops)

If you are worried about the marks that your cutting plate needs, just “massage” the cut edges with a bone folder.

 

Celebrate Classic Blue

Pantone’s Color of the Year for 2020 is Classic Blue! I thought it would be fun to kick start a bunch of cards (not all today, or even this week…) using Classic Blue, or, in the Stampin’ Up! world, Night of Navy. (Now, if we still had Midnight Muse, I think it would be more perfect… not sure if Blueberry Bushel is the right shade or saturation.)

I was meaning to use Night of Navy as the predominant color on this card. However, as I was pulling colors together to complement, the card took a right turn. I love how it turned out, though! (And coincidentally enough, I was asked if this was going to be another sympathy card, because life sometimes turns out that way. Yes, it can be, but it can be for other occasions as well!)

Stamp: none

Ink: Gray Granite

Paper: Gray Granite, Whisper White, Mango Melody, Pumpkin Pie, Pear Pizzazz, Old Olive, Basic Black, Neutrals 6×6 DSP stack

Accessories: Poppy Moments dies, Subtle 3D embossing folder

The blue in the background really makes the golden poppies pop! They are almost opposites on the color wheel, which is why I chose to use poppies.

As I was building up layers, I found it helpful to use a larger piece of cardstock on which to flip elements. If I wanted to add something to the background, cover the project with the extra cardstock, flip pieces off the base, add the new element, then flip everything back on top. Remove the extra cardstock. Repeat as many times as needed. Then, take a picture, just in case! I had put the flowers together first, then decided about the background. I added the DSP first, then the Whisper White mat to the DSP, and finally added the embossed background. As I added to the background, I found I wanted more layers for contrast and texture. Being able to lift and replace the flower pieces saved my sanity. 🙂

There is some ink sponging on the leaf die cuts, but they weren’t obvious enough to really talk about. I did sponge ink along the edges of the embossed background, though. I thought it helped pull all of the elements into the center (instead of feeling like they were spiralling outward, if that makes sense).

On the inside, I added an extra leaf die cut in Pear Pizzazz.

Happy (Lunar) New Year

I wanted to make a card for a friend of mine for the Lunar New Year. Tomorrow starts the Year of the Rat. A former co-worker of mine used to say “Year of the Mouse” ‘cuz she thought it sounded better. 🙂

So, what better way to decorate the New Year card, than the cute mouse from the Someone Special stamp set. BONUS: A matching die set will be available for purchase starting February 4. Demonstrators got to preorder it now.

Can you identify the other stamps I used?

Stamp: Someone Special, Check You Out, Beautiful Bouquet, Painted Poppies, Power of Hope, Praiseworthy Prose, New Year Celebrations

Ink: Real Red, Smoky Slate, Gray Granite, Crumb Cake, Mango Melody, Memento Tuxedo Black, Smoky Slate marker, Cherry Cobbler Blends combo, Daffodil Delight Blends dark

Paper: Real Red, Whisper White, Gray Granite

Accessories: Special Day dies (coming February 4), Red Rhinestone basic jewels, Classic label punch

Isn’t that so much fun? I didn’t have to use the die to cut out the mouse. But, I found that it was a bit tricky to line up the solid image with the outline image. Hence, it was less stressful to stamp multiple times and cut out the best one for my project. 🙂

The background of “firecrackers” was created by repeatedly stamping one of the books from Check You Out. I thought the solid bookcover with stripes made a perfect firecracker.

The focal image is the mouse standing around celebrating with a string of firecrackers. Initially, I was just going to make a string, with the top visible (hanging from somewhere). However, it looked a little “blah”. My mom suggested adding sparks and smoke as if the firecrackers are already going off, and I think it works much better! It’s like he’s in the middle of the celebration!

I drew a line with a Smoky Slate marker, so I knew where to stamp the “firecrackers”. I took a small stamp from Beautiful Bouquet to create the firecrackers, and alternated stamping them on each side at a slant. Once I was done, I went back and connected each end to the middle “string” with the Smoky Slate marker. I used the small splatter stamp from Painted Poppies to add the “sparks” in Mango Melody and “smoke” in Smoky Slate.

The sentiment is from Someone Special. I inked just the word “celebrate!” onto Gray Granite, and punched with the Classic Label punch. I added three rhinestones for sparkle.

On the inside, I thought I’d decorate with lanterns from the Sale-a-bration Power of Hope set, a definition of “celebrate” from the Praiseworthy Prose set, and the words “Happy New Year” from the New Year Celebrations set. The lanterns are colored with Blends, fussy cut, and arranged in the corner. I used a die from the Layering Ovals die set to draw the string. I didn’t trust myself to draw it free hand. Silly, right?

Wishing for Spring

As I am writing this, we are expecting 1-2 weeks of cold weather (for us) to settle in. As long as it’s not the crazy snow we saw last February (in which we saw all of our cold and rain hit at the same time), I’m okay with that. 🙂

(Edited: thought I’d come back and update that we had 3 days of snow. From Sunday evening to Wednesday afternoon, we got up to 8 inches of snow. Then between going to bed on Saturday night and waking up the next morning, poof! The residual snow was gone.)

Nonetheless, I had the urge to create a card that shows the precursor to spring: the flowering of cherry blossom and flowering plum trees! I couldn’t resist throwing in the use of the New Year Celebration set and a Sale-a-bration item.

Stamp set: Snow Front (still available), New Year Celebration (online only)

Ink: Pear Pizzazz, Gray Granite, Blushing Bride, Rococo Rose

Paper: Very Vanilla thick, Whisper White, Gray Granite, Pear Pizzazz, Subtles DSP stack

Accessories: Power of Hope Sale-a-bration bundle, In Color faceted gems

Isn’t that a great use of a stamp set that is promoted for building snow scenes? Hopefully, you can also see the potential for creating fall scenes, too. I used two colors of the splatter stamp to create the flowers on the tree, to add depth to the color of the flowers. (In case you haven’t seen how these trees bloom, the flowers come in first, then the leaves.)

I wanted to use the embossing folder from the Power of Hope Sale-a-bration bundle. By adding a mat behind it, I thought it really looks like a paving stone walkway (like ours, but a different color).

A quick accent with cherry blossoms from the New Year Celebrations stamp set was all that was needed to complete the card. I fussy cut and added some faceted gems to the center.