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Sea Life Dies and Alcohol Ink on Vellum Technique

August 20, 2021 / Leave a comment

Hello Stamping Friends,

Hostess Code through September 15: WKQ6CJ7R

Stock up on stamps before August 29 when prices go up! Thanks for the reminder, Joy!

August club cards will be posted separately on this blog so the post is shorter, so check the next post for the Shaded Summer partial die cutting and shaded stamping card.

Before we go to the card let’s look at what is happening this month at Stampin’ Up!

We have a sneak peak of September Paper Pumpkin:

I prepay for a three month subscription to Paper Pumpkin and then activate it now for the September, October and November kits. Even when one of the kits was Christmas tags, I made cards from the tags and had a nice addition to my Christmas cards. I don’t always use the treat boxes in the September kit but this kit will have instructions to turn the box into a wheelbarrow and we can put our pumpkins, apples and jack-o-lanterns in the wheelbarrow for a nice end table decoration. Love it! Click the image above to go to the Paper Pumpkin site or place an order for a prepaid subscription and then activate it whenever you choose. PS – Don’t add your credit card info when you have a prepaid plan, just enter the code they sent to your email.

And if you buy a 3 month subscription, you will get a free $50 Sale A Bration product. Just saying……

Thanks, Sal, for throwing in that tidbit for getting the most for your dollars. Sale A Bration runs through the end of September with the opportunity to buy $50 and get a level one product for free or buy $100 and get a level 2 product for free. Here’s another look at the brochure:

More details HERE.

Sea Life Dies With A Background Of Alcohol Ink On Vellum

This card and technique were inspired by Patty Bennett.

Here is a youtube video for you:

Recipe:

Base: Just Jade, 4 1/4 X 11, scored at 5 1/2
Layer 1 (X2): Misty Moonlight, 4 1/8 X 5 3/8
Layer 2 (X2): Basic White, 4 X 5 1/4
Cardstock Vellum: 4 1/4 X 6 (This gives you 3/4″ to trim off after creating your background and 1/4 for trimming edges)
Double Back Adhesive Sheet: 41/4 X 6
Front Greeting: Basic White, 2 1/2 X 3/4 (I used a ‘Many Messages’ greeting)
Seahorse: Blue Ombre Specialty Paper, 4X2
- Note: you will need to fussy cut two tiny sections on the belly and two sections around the fin since this is a partial die
Fish (X3): Blue Ombre Specialty Paper, 1 1/2 X 2
Seahorse Backing: Be Dazzling SAB specialty paper, 4 X 2
- Note: Cover the back of your 4 X 2 Be Dazzling paper with scotch tape before die cutting
Seaweed: Evening Evergreen Shimmer Vellum, 3 X 2 1/2
Easel (X2): Misty Moonlight, 2 3/4 X 4, score at 2 3/8 and 1 5/8 and then cut with largest hippo die lining up the middle
Stampin’ Blends Alcohol Markers: Lt Misty Moonlight, Lt Night of Navy, Dk Shaded Spruce, Dk Night of Navy
Ink: Shaded Spruce
Tools: Sea Life Dies, Messages Die, Hippo Die for Easel, Medium Tip Water Painter, Basic Black Journaler to dot the eyes
91% Alcohol
Stamp Sets: Many Messages, Friends Are Like Seashells
Embellishments: Three Basic Rhinestones

To make an alcohol ink on vellum background – Prepare your surface. I have a thin plastic quilting sheet I use.

Place a piece of copy paper underneath your vellum to soak up the excess that hits the edges of the vellum
Use a small container with a little alcohol in it for dipping your Water Painter
Have a paper towel next to the container to clean the Water Painter often so you don’t mix colors
Scribble on your vellum:

Place your copier paper under the vellum and dab alcohol one color at a time on the vellum. Be generous with the alcohol and dab starting with all the Light Misty Moonlight scribbles, then Light Night of Navy, Dark Shaded Spruce and ending by dabbing all the Dark Night of Navy scribbles. Use your breath or a straw to blow the alcohol so the colors blend. Blow any excess build up off the edges so you don’t get a solid line at the sides.

Add additional scribbles if you have areas that are ‘blah’ and repeat.

When you are pleased with the result make it a “wow” by dipping your clean brush in the alcohol and then flick the brush on your finger, staying about 6″ over the vellum. For small bubbles use just a little alcohol and stay a good distance over the vellum, for large bubbles use a little more alcohol in the brush and be closer to the vellum. Scroll back up to my card front and you will see I have pretty large bubbles and then as the alcohol in the brush ran out the bubbles are smaller.

Let the vellum dry or use the lightest setting on the heat gun to dry the vellum.

Attach the vellum to the double back adhesive sheet, trim to 4″ X 6″ and then cut 3/4″ off the bottom for an inside strip. You should have a 4″ X 5 1/4″ to mount on the Basic White by removing the other side of the double back adhesive. If you have trouble attaching it squarely to the Basic White just trim the edges after attaching as needed.

The rest of the construction is pretty basic. I used Tombow liquid glue to attach the seahorse blue top to the Be Dazzling paper. Before popping up the seahorse with dimensionals I attached the seaweed at the bottom in just a few places with Tombow glue and then wrapped the seahorse around the left branch I left unattached. The seahorse, fish and greeting are all popped up with dimensionals. Don’t forget to dot little black eyes on the seahorse and fish with the Basic Black Journaler. Since the fish are popped up, the eyes seem to follow you as you move the card – cute!

You’re making that up…..

I guess they’ll just have to make one to see if it’s true.

Remember to add your three rhinestones for more bubbles!

Lastly I added my new type of Easel to the back of the card using the largest of the Hippo Dies. I cut two and glued them together for a little extra strength since the front was pretty heavy.

I would love to see what you make using this technique. Post a picture in the comments section!

These dies are beautiful! Jo Brooks used the large fish die and the ‘Whale Of A Time’ designer series paper to create this card:

Thank you, Jo!

And thank you for spending part of your day with me! I hope we have been able to bring you a pinch of creativity to spice up your crafting life!

Shop for these products now by clicking on little Sal in the computer!

Hostess Code through September 15: WKQ6CJ7R

SAL, Stamp A Lot, Smile A Little

Karen

Lions & Dragons – Oh My!

January 14, 2021 / 6 Comments on Lions & Dragons – Oh My!

Hello Stamping Friends,

Let’s have some fun with Lions (dandelions) and Dragons (dragonflies)!

January’s hostess code is : UEEZKD2D for use if your order is under $150.

Yesterday I was live on Facebook with January’s club cards. Each club member had kits with all the supplies so this time my presentation was different with just the construction of the card without going from the beginning to the end and listing all the sizes of the card cuts, so this blog post will fill in the gaps!

Dragonfly Z Fold Club Card Introducing The Dandy Garden Suite

This suite is on Page 25 of the JJ catalog (Jan-June mini)!

Recipe:

Base: Bumble Bee, 5 1/2 X 10 7/8, Lay the base horizontally at the 7 1/4″ mark and cut down 1 1/8 inch, then score the rest of the way.

Secondly, mark the left hand side down from the top at 3 3/8″ and cut the base from 1 1/8″ to the 3 3/8″ mark. (Note: the tip of the cut is at 1 1/8″).

Score the base at 3 5/8″ from the left. You now have two score lines: one at 3 5/8′ and one at 7 1/4″.

Your base is done!

Let’s mount our little dragonflies and the bumblebees on little strips of window sheets.

Window sheet strips (X2): 3/8″ X 1 1/4″

Bumblebees: Use the Dandy Wishes Dies little Bumblebee die to cut two bumblebees from the Dandy Garden DSP (Designer Series Paper). Color the back of the bumblebees with Mossy Meadow. Place glue dots on the top of one of the window sheets, one on the front and one glue dot on the back, and then adhere your bumblebees back to back. The “Garden Wishes” stamp set has a bumblebee image to stamp if you would rather have a stamp set than a die set.

Dragonflies: The Dandy Garden DSP has sheets that match up with the Dragonfly punch (which is bundled with the ‘Dragonfly Garden’ stamp set for a 10% discount) and you will punch out two matching small dragonflies and mount them on your window sheet strip with a glue dot on the window sheet front and on the back.

Back Layer of the Z fold: Dandy Garden DSP, full rectangle – 3 3/8″ wide X 5 1/4″ tall. The DSP is directional.

Middle Layer of the Z fold (which is on the back of the base): Dandy Garden DSP, Start with a piece of DSP, 3 3/8″ wide X 4 1/8″ tall, Mark down 1 1/8″ on the right hand side and cut from the tip of the left hand side to the mark on the right hand side. Flip your base over and place your bumblebee where he will be on top of a dandelion at the back when you fold the card flat. Use a glue dot to position the bumblebee and then adhere the DSP.

Front Layer of the Z fold: Dandy Garden DSP, 3 3/8″ wide X 3″ tall to start. Mark 1 1/8 ” down -this time on the left hand side and cut a diagonal from the tip of the 3″ to the 1 1/8″ mark. Before adhering, wrap your linen thread around the DSP and tie a bow.

Note: On both the middle and the front layer, you can place your DSP where it will go, and make your marks for your diagonal cuts without measuring so that if your diagonal cut is not quite perfect your layer will be and will have a nice 1/8″ border.

Greeting Border: Bumblebee, 3 1/4″ X 3 1/4″, cut with the Largest Square Stitched Shape Die (2 5/8″)

Greeting Top Layer: Whisper White, 2 1/2″ X 2 1/2″, cut with the 2nd largest Square Stitched Shape Die (2 1/8″). I stamped the greeting from Dragonfly Garden, “May Good Things Grow All Year Long”, in green, and then did a stamp off of the dragonfly cluster across the greeting in Bumble Bee ink.

Embellishments: One little ladybug mounted with a glue dot. 16″ of Mossy Meadow Braided Linen Trim.

Alternative Cut: Diagonal Z fold with the diagonal from the back to the front.

The base of this card uses just 1/2 of a piece of cardstock so you can make two cards from one sheet.

Base: Bumble Bee, 5 1/2″ X 10 7/8″ scored at 3 5/8″ and 7 1/4″ with a diagonal cut from left to right at the 5 1/2″ cut down to 1″ from the bottom on the right.

Note: I have a 1/8″ border on the right, left and tops but did not have a border on the bottom.

Back Layer: DSP, 3 3/8″ wide X 3 1/4 ” tall, cut diagonally left to right from the 3 1/4″ tip to 1 3/8″ down from the top.

Back Greeting: Shimmer White, 3 3/8″ wide X 1 7/8″ tall, For this greeting I stamped the “Thank You For Your Kindness” from Dragonfly Garden in blue and then added a punched out dragonfly.

Middler Layer– goes on the back of the base: DSP, striped in this case, 3 3/8″ wide X 3 7/8″ tall , diagonally cut from the right to the left from the tip to left marked at 1 1/2 “. Tip: place the top of your layer with a nice 1/8” border and trim the bottom since it is flush to the bottom.

Front Layer: 3 3/8″ wide X 2 3/8″ tall, cut diagonally from the left to the right marked at 1 3/8″ from the top. Now wait — don’t adhere yet.

Dragonfly: Dandy Garden DSP, punch two large dragonflies and mount them with glue dots on a strip of Window Sheet 3/8″ X 1 1/4″. Use another glue dot to adhere the window sheet to the front of the base.

After the Dragonfly is adhered – adhere your front layer.

Embellishments: Die cut a bumble bee from DSP and adhere to front; adhere a ladybug trinket with a glue dot to front; tie a little bow with 8″ of Mossy Meadow Braided Linen Trim and adhere it to the back.

Which do you like better? A rectangle back or a diagonal back? Leave a comment with your vote by January 25 for a chance to win the ladybug trinkets!

Sand and Sea Club Cards Introducing The Sand & Sea Suite

This suite is on page 41 of the JJ catalog.

I used the Whale Of A Time Designer Series Paper instead of the paper in the suite so I had a smaller background behind the shells. The cards shown above have three different backgrounds from the Whale of a Time DSP:

Which do you like best? #1) little fishes amongst the seaweed, #2) seahorses, #3) the coral reef

Leave a comment with your vote by January 25 for a chance to win The Opal Rounds embellishments!

Recipe:

Base: Pretty Peacock, 5 1/2″ X 8 1/2″, Scored at 4 1/4″

Layer 1: Whale of a Time DSP, 5 3/8″ X 4 1/8″

Layer 2: Garden Green, Start with 5 1/2″ X 4 1/4″ and cut with the largest Seaside Seashell Die to make a base.

Layer 3: Granny Apple Green, Start with 5 1/2″ X 4 1/4″ and cut with the largest Seaside Seashell Die, then cut out all the little vines and glue them to the Garden Green base. This gives you a nice contrast of greens. Note: you can cut into the seashells to give more area to adhere the vines since the seashells will be glued on top.

Layer 4: Pearlescent Specialty Paper, Start with 5 1/2″ X 4 1/4″ and cut with the largest Seaside Seashell Die, then cut out all the seashells and glue them on the base over the greenery.

Greeting: Shimmery White, Start with 1 X 2 1/2″, stamp the greeting, and then cut with the rectangle stitched die to make a perfectly sized rectangle. Cut one end, stop halfway, reposition the die on the other end and cut that half. I demonstrate this in the video.

Inside: Shimmery White, 5 3/8″X 4 1/8″

Inside strip: DSP cut from the same piece as the background, 5/8″ X 4 1/8″

Here are two examples of what I did on the inside: