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!

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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!

Inspiration Station April Blog Hop Challenge

 

Click here to join the hop challenge!

My take on this month's inspiration photo. I was inspired by the soft colors in the inspiration photo. I wanted to do my best to reproduce this photo with what I had.

I started with a sheet of cardstock patterned like white-washed wood. I ink blended over it in brown.

I then took a grey ink pad directly to the brown tinted cardstock to give it more color and depth.

My project started life as a 5 x 7" card. I used a soft grey piece of cardstock to which I roughed up the edges. Over that I attached the wood cardstock at an angle, so it was more like the table in the inspiration photo. However, the embellishments I wanted to use were smaller than I expected, way too small to create good composition on a 5 x 7 base. So, I cut the card down to an A2 size. I had to rip off the grey background and instead went with this grey/brown mottled piece.

Now for the embellishments! I used the flower and leaf die-cuts from Altenew mini-delight sets "Apothecary Garden" and "Gardener's Corner." 

To bring in a yellow element, since I didn't have any rain-boot embellishments, I cut the crate from the Gardners' Corner set out of yellow wood grain cardstock.

Pro tip: I only glued it together on the sides so it would be open on the inside so I could put flowers in it.

I used a pale pink ink to stamp the vases from the Apothecary Garden set on pink ombre cardstock. I did have to fussy cut these out.

I applied white pigment ink over the vases to give them that milk paint finish.

Unfortunately, I lost the photos of cutting and assembling the watering can, but I used the Altenew mini delight set "Watering Daisies" and cut the watering can from some grungy metal cardstock scraps.

I used a dark Teal blue ink to stamp the sentiment on a scrap of the wood cardstock.

I hope this month's photo inspired you! If you do any of these techniques, please remember to tag me on social media @scrappystampthefunup I'd love to see your work! See you next month!

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