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Saturday 12 December 2015

Hyvää Joulua with peaceful pines!

This is a simple card with not too many stamps used on it.

 The card base is Cherry Cobbler, as well as the ink on the Finnish 'Hyvää Joulua' (merry Christmas) greeting. The background is embossed on Whisper White with Softly Falling embossing folder.

The tag is Crumb Cake and I stamped the 'ground' with Sheltering Tree stamp using Garden Green ink.
The tree is cut with the perfect pines framelit dies from a paper I bought few years ago from Finland (with Finnish Xmas greetings). The snow flakes are also from a generic snow flake stamp, as I needed small ones and I didn't find one from any current Stampin'Up! stamps I had (and all the retired sets are packed away in a card board box somewhere in the house)

Then I tied a piece of Crumb Cake seam binding with linen thread and that's all folks!

Twinkle twinkle little star

I got my inspiration for this card from Pinterest. 

I used single layer for my card, using the new thick whisper white card stock

I cut out a rough circle out of scrap paper to use as a stencil (didn't want it to be sharp edged).
Unfortunately Stampin'Up! does not have a great background scribble stamp, so I ended up using a generic scribble stamp (don't know where I got it and by whom it is made), but you could use any kind of background stamp, even the world map background stamp or the ledger stamp from The Open Sea would look great. I used Early Espresso ink for the scribble stamp and crumb cake on the Gorgeus Grunge stamp set.

Then I stamped the little star from Peaceful Pines with versa mark and embossed with gold embossing powder.

I cut the star with a framelit from corrugated paper and added couple of stars punched out of glimmer paper. Then tied thick bakers twine on the top of the star.

(Just realized that I took the pictures of the ONLY card where I dropped the scribble stamp after stamping, so it has a shadow scribble... Proofs that there are no mistakes in stamping... Just creative points of views - hahaha)

so easy and quick card to make!

Stamping with Woodland embossing folder

I love this technique, although it it a bit tricky and time consuming for me :-)


First, it is harder if you have old Big Shot cutting pads (curved), I had to run mine through couple of times and out a shim (piece of card stock) to get the inking on the edges too. The first 2 didn't get inked on the edges, this is why I made these versions (the greeting on these is in Finnish).
 

You get better results if you ink your colours with a sponge. I didn't have the time (?) for this, so I used my ink pads. You tend to get some streaks with them, but I didn't mind. 

The colours I used were Marina Mist and Night of Navy, those happened also to be the old felt type ink pads, so the streaks might have just be due to the pad type.

Make sure you ink the side where the tree trunks are indented (ink does not get to the groove) and then stamp your image with a darker colour. I used 'lovely as a tree' stamp set and Early Espresso ink. Make sure you stamp your image on the embossing folder the right way!! 
So you ink your embossing folder first (use lighter colour first) and last stamp your image on it.
Then place your card stock on the embossing folder, close it without moving your paper, and then run it through your Big Shot. Open carefully without moving the paper 

Clean your folder in between embossing the next one (if you do multiples).

Here is a ful image version (you can see the streaks)

Also, I realized it after embossing couple, pay attention where you stamp your image (trees), my first trees got all hidden behind the embossed trees (as you can see on the third picture) so stamp the trees where there is also visible ink, that way they get printed on the cardstock in between the embossed trees :-)

So enjoy these wintery scenes even though we seem to have a spring like weather outside! (I have new weeds coming out in my flower bed!!!)


Friday 4 December 2015

Tips for using Archival, Memento and StãsOn inks

So, here are the facts and my experiences with these 3 inks

ARCHIVAL INK
The newest addition to the ink families is Archival Ink. It comes in Basic Black and Basic Gray.
This ink was mainly created as you can watercolour the images (vs. Memento Ink).

the ink is acid-free, fade-resistant, and archivally safe. The solvent ink is nontoxic and environmentally safe! Hurray!

You may notice a difference to Stampin'Up!s Classic ink pads when you open it. The stamp pads are made of linen, so they won't need to be re-inked as often. Do not use with nonporous materials like vellum paper as the ink will bleed (vs. StãzOn).

Does it stain? YES! Fast drying time means quick staining time - so clean your rubber stamps right away WITH StãzOn cleaner!!! With photopolymer stamps, stick to the regular Stampin'Mist stamp cleaner!

You will need to rub your stamp really well with this ink pad, specially after getting used to the light touch with the foam ink pads! So dig to your muscle memory and find the old felt pad inking technique :-)
Here are some samples of too light touch with Archival Ink

MEMENTO INK
this ink was mainly introduced due to the blendabilities markers, which were alcohol based, and would bleed with other alcohol based inks, like StãzOn. Since the blendabilities were withdrawn, I used the memento ink mainly as my regular black ink. Cleans nicely with just Stampin'Mist! This ink will bleed with watercolouring, or using blender pen so use only on it's own.

This ink pad is also fabric covered, so you will need to rub your stamp harder on the ink pad.
Also note, that the ink tends to sink down on the pad during storage, as it is not constructed like the Stampin'Up ink pads are (ink pad in facing down). I found the stamp inks easier and more evenly with Memento ink than with Archival Ink.

The biggest difference with Memento ink and Archival ink is how they stain your stamps. Well and the fact that the Memento is water based.

The smaller photopolymer stamp (not a Stampin'Up stamp, but same material) was used with Memento ink - no staining on the stamp. The larger was used with Archival Ink, and I used it several times without cleaning it in between and I could not get the ink stain off. Not even with StãzOn cleaner, so it really is permanent! The stamp still performs beautifully, but if you are obsessed about clean stamps, you might want to stay away of this ink :-)

STÃZON INK
StãzOn ink is permanent ink, and needs to be cleaned with StãzOn cleaner. This ink is great for watercolouring and can be used on nonporous surfaces. I have used this on plastic, glass and tiles (to make coasters).
NOTE! Stampin'Up! does not recommend using StãzOn with Photopolymer stamps (mainly because the cleaner will damage them, not so much the ink itself).

So ther is my analysis on these three inks.

The stamp set used in this experiment was by Mama Elephant

Wednesday 2 December 2015

Kiddy cards

I love this Zoo Babies stamp set. 

I used a retired border embossing folder on the edge and some washi tape just above the embossing.
The washi on the left if from Sweet Lil' Things Washi and the one on the right is from Bohemian Washi

The zebra is stamped with black archival ink, the giraffe with crushed curry and the elephant with tip top taupe.
The ribbon is Crumb Cake seam binding.

I also made these cute baby cards using a retired 'baby's first' stamp set from about 10 years ago.


On the first card I used a size A clear block to stamp the coloured blocks and on the second I made a square mask and used the largest paint brush stamp from 'work of art' to stamp the coloured through the opening in the mask.

The colours on the squares are Pear Pizzazz, Pink Pirouette, Soft Sky and So Saffron
And I used the new thick whisper white card stock on these, they make perfect single layer cards!










Tuesday 1 December 2015

You can never have too many birthday cards - right?

I find I'm always running out of Bday cards. So now when I make some, I try to make multiple of the same, sometimes using a bit different colours.

I usually give stacks of cards as Xmas presents for my family, so yesterday I noticed I didn't have enough birthday cards... So assembly line, here I come :-)

The ones above use all the same colours: Crushed Curry, Pool Party and Strawberry Slush.
The stamp set is Build a  Birthday, the washi tape is Cherry on Top
One of the cards has a small piece of retired Crushed Curry chevron ribbon, to mask an ink stain, but you know what they say? mistakes are an opportunity to embellish :)

Here is another card made using the same stamp set
The colours on this are Smoky Slate, Melon Mambo, Blushing Bride, Pink Pirouette and Very Vanilla
And a little bit of Wild Wasabi card stock punched out with bird builder punch.

The sentiments on all the cards are various Finnish stamps.