September Inspiration Station Blog Hop Challenge

Absolutely love this month's inspiration photo!! Fall is my favorite crafting time of year and I was super excited to pull out my autumn stamps! Below is my take on this month's inspiration photo, I hope you like it! To follow the hop and participate in the challenge, click the link below:

Inspiration Station

As much as I love crafting with leaves, how could I not be inspired by the colors of this month's inspiration photo?  Especially that pink leaf right in the middle. My card project is a 5 x 7" standard fold card base from some light plum colored cardstock that I felt was as close to the color of that pink leaf as I could find. The other colors of cardstock I picked out reflect my other favorite colors from the inspiration photo and will be used in layers on the card face to tie in the colors of the finished project.

Next, I rummaged through my stash of leaf stamps (most are from retired Stampin' Up! sets or from current Altenew Mini-Delight subscription sets), picking out the best outline tamps. I picked a light and dark yellow, green and red ink from Altenew's Fresh Dye Ink and randomly stamped leaves all over an 8 1/5 x 11"sheet of cardstock.

Next, I used the light green, yellow and red ink to randomly ink blend over the leaves. I left some areas white to help give depth to the finished leaves.

Repeating the same random ink blending, I went over the leaves with the darker green, yellow and red ink. I made sure to mix up my random bending, putting red on green and yellow leaves, yellow on red and green leaves, etc... hoping to give them a more realistic coloring.

Next, I die cut them out or fussy cut the stamped leaves that didn't have matching dies.

I applied the cardstock layers to the card face, then arranged and glued the leaves down on the dark red top layer of cardstock.

Then it was time for the focal point of my project; that gorgeous pink leaf. I stamped a big leaf in Berry Burst ink from Stampin' Up! On a scrap of that light plum colored cardstock, I used for the card base. I went over the leaf with white pigment ink, then blended over the white ink randomly with some of the Berry Burst ink to give the leaf soft dimension.

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I then used gold embossing powder to re-stamp the leaf. This powder is from American Crafts, called "Zing"-not sure if they still make this, I know I've had it for at least 20 years. No, embossing powder doesn't go bad if it's from a good company.

I cut a piece of vellum to fit the top dark red cardstock layer of the card and glued the leaf to the front of it. I flipped the vellum over and applied glue to the backside of the leaf so when I attach it to the card face, the glue spot is hidden. I know no one likes to see the glue spots thru vellum.

To hold the vellum down strategically to the card face, I die-cut leaves from scraps of the cardstock I used for the card base and layer as well as the sentiment strip.

Not sure what to call this technique, but I think it came out pretty cool! I hope you like it and that it inspires you to start your fall crafting! If you try any of my techniques from this project, be sure to tag me on social media @scrappystampthefunup I'd love to see your work!

To snag some of the amazing Altenew Fresh Dye inks, click the link below to shop the Altenew online store!

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See you next month!

 

August Inspiration Station Blog Hop Challenge

This month's inspiration photo! 

To join the blog hop challenge, click below:

Inspiration Station

My take on this month's inspiration photo

This month's project came during a huge life transition for me, so I had to keep this project simple and easy. But honestly, isn't that how we need pretty much most of our card projects?? To keep this project simple yet true to the fun colors of the inspiration photo, I hit my scraps.

I really imagined doing a soft, pretty ink blended background, but then I came across this striped, retired 6 x 6" of retired Stampin' Up! cardstock and it perfectly gave me the tone I wanted based on the background of the inspiration photo. 

Rather than my vision of die-cutting many green leaves, I kept it simple by just "framing" the card with green shades of cardstock

With a scrap of the light green cardstock, I did a one-layer sentiment from my go-to "hello" die from Hero Arts

Instead of stenciling a whole field of sunflowers, I decided on just one big, bold flower. Not only did this save me time, but it also provided great composition to show off the striped background. And I finally got to break out this Tim Holtz Thinlits by Sizzix I have had sitting in my stash for a year or so.

The colors all come together as well as they do in the inspiration photo, yet it was so simple and really, by keeping this project simple, it really ended up pulling itself together.

I hope you enjoyed my take on this month's inspiration photo. Also, make sure you check out the blog hop and join the challenge! Good luck! And remember, if you try any of the tips or techniques I have used in this project, tag me on social media @scrappystampthefunup

 

 

June Inspiration Station Blog Hop Challenge

This month's inspiration photo! To join the blog hop challenge, click the link below:

Inspiration Station

I was so excited for this month's inspiration photo because I actually had a strawberry stencil and die set! Dynamic Duo Fruitful Fun.

I was inspired by the range of red hues in the inspiration photo, so I wanted to do a layered card face. The card base is an A2 size from bright red cardstock. I chose a darker red layer, embossed with the Altenew 3D embossing folder Organic Linen for the background layer.

To simulate a basket, I used a scrap of kraft cardstock and alternated stenciling on it with the Altenew Classy Stripes stencil. Pro tip: using brown ink to stencil on the brown cardstock would be way too dark as the basket in this project is not the center of attention. I used shades of dull pink to get the right shade of "basket weave" look: Altenew Fresh Dye ink in Dusty Rose and Pale Mauve.

I cut the "basket" background out with an oval die on the off-se so the oval had the cross-hatch pattern. and of course I edged it in a darker tone.

I used a right red ink for stenciling the base of the strawberries. I made a bunch because I wasn't sure how many I would end up using. Pro tip: always make more than you think you will need.

 

The green tops were stenciled in Altenew Fresh Dye Ink Just Green. The berry dots and top stems were stamped with Altenew Fresh Dye ink in Amethyst and Hunter Green. Pro tip: when I was done stenciling and stamping the berries, I went over them all with the Coral Red ink. This was for two reasons: first, so when I die cut them, they wouldn't have a white boarder, and the red toned down the bright green of the tips.

To get strawberry flowers I used the die set from the Altenew Mini Delight set Apothecary Garden. These were simply cut from just white and yellow cardstock.

The Fruitful Fun set does not have leaves, so I looked through my stash for Stamps with leaves similar to a strawberry plant. I chose the leaves from the Altenew set Botanical Illustrations. Using the Just Green ink to stamp the leaves, and Mossy Meadow to color them-again, giving them a final do-over for no white edges when I die cut them. 

Finally, I pieced it all together. I used an Anna Griffin sentiment from my stash and built my scene around it.

I used various thicknesses of adhesive foam dots to give lift to the leaves and berries.

I hope you enjoyed this project! Remember, if you try any of my tips, tag me on social media @scrappystapthefunup! I'd love to see your work! Good luck on the hop challenge and I'll see you next month!

To snag any of the Altenew products used in this project, click the link below!

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May Inspiration Station Blog Challenge!

 

Inspiration Station

Happy May crafty friends! Welcome to another monthly blog hop challenge from Inspiration Station! Above is this month's inspiration photo. Click the link below it to follow and join the challenge!

I was inspired more by the colors of this month's photo, rather than the the me, as I have no need for graduation cards this year. But that didn't stop me from doing a "Congrats!" card that could be for any occasion. I started with color selection. I wanted to use patterned reds and blues.

My idea was going onto a top folding A2 easel card from bright yellow cardstock with a pane on top to build the fun.

I chose a subtle red textured cardstock. unfortunately, it wasn't big enough to fill to the sides of my white panel, but since I had the idea to place a central piece of cardstock down the center of the panel, I just split the red scrap in two and butted the edges up to the sides of the panel
 

I found the perfect piece of celebratory cardstock on dark blue paper in my stash and laid it over the reds.

Using a simple "congrats" die I cut out the sentiment from a navy blue wood grain cardstock scrap.

I used retired Stampin' Up! label dies to lift the sentiment off the card face. This particular die was just a little too wide for the A2 card face width, so I did have to do some discrete trimming.

No worries on the label trimming. I think this project came out great for what it's future purpose will be. I hope you liked this simple way to make any "congrats" card fit to ant particular color patterned event or theme, just y using cardstock scraps. Good luck on the hop challenge and I'll see you next month!