Thursday, February 17, 2011

A Birthday Card for a Very Special 3 Year Old

A friend of my kids is turning 3 this week-end. So I knew that part of today would involve making a card for her. When I opened my email this morning and saw the Pals Paper Arts Sketch Challenge 81, I knew it would be a great sketch for the card I was planning. I already knew I wanted to use the Big Shot Simple Numbers, Multipurpose Adhesive Sheets and Dazzling Diamonds Glitter to make a glimmery "#3". What I especially loved about this sketch is that I could really make the 3 stand out while combining several coordinating Designer Papers.

If you aren't familiar with Stampin' Up!'s Adhesive Sheets, you'll love everything you can do with them. They can be used with fabric, card stock - anything really. And not only that - you can stick them to card stock / fabric and then run them through the Big Shot to get perfect adhesive die cut element for your paper crafting. To add a little glam to this special card, I die cut the '3' with the adhesive on the top side, so that I could sprinkle Dazzling Diamonds Glitter on it.

The Simple Numbers dies come with a little flower, so I cut it out with some remaining card stock/Adhesive Sheet and applied glitter to it as well. I put a Chocolate Chip Corduroy Brad (retired) through the middle of the flower to add a bit more texture.


Hope you enjoyed this special birthday card. Keep letting stamps bring out your creativity! (Although, isn't it ironic that I barely used stamps on this card? lol!)

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Watercoloring Stamper's Group

My stamper's groups always want to do some watercoloring. In the past, I've always struggled with finding stamp sets that work well for watercoloring, but this year we have "Greeting Card Kids", the perfect set! Since we were coming up to Valentine's Day, I also used the new "Blowing Kisses" set. To prevent the ink from bleeding during watercoloring, we used Stayz-On ink in black.

For the Blowing Kisses card, we watercolored with AquaPainters and Classic Ink. For the little Greeting Card Girl, we used Watercolor Wonder Crayons. Both images were watercolored on watercolor paper.

We also tried out a ribbon technique that is all the rage right now - ruching. We ran Sticky Strip along the bottom of the card and then we applied our ribbon, gathering it randomly. There are many different way ruching can be done. Using different ribbons achieves a different look. Stay tuned for more ruching examples in weeks to come since I'm loving this technique ;)

Take a look at my class list, too. Couple of great new classes coming up! And most importantly, keep letting stamps bring out your creativity.