Holiday Notes

I'm getting started making little Christmas gifts. Here is one that I have so far. This is a Post-It Note holder.

This first picture is the outside. I used the little snowman from the Seasonal Scribbles stamp set. I pieced his scarf with a piece of green cardstock and colored his buttons with the black Souffle Gelly Pen so they are slightly raised. The paterned paper is from Merry Wishes. To cut the notch, I used the Basic Grey Notch & Die tool. I know that a lot of people bought that and didn't care for it a lot, but I have to say that I really like mine!


This second picture shows the inside. The Post-It Notes are from the $1 section in Michael's they were selling these last year so I bought several of them. I will be keeping an eye out for them again this year. They came in a package of 2; not bad for $1!

Had A Great Weekend Stamping!

I got to spend the whole weekend stamping! I packed up some papers, stamps and goodies and headed to my sister's house for the weekend. She lives about an hour from me so it's just easier to stay a couple of days. So while the kids all played together, we spent the weekend playing! She had invited some friends over on Saturday to have a TAC workshop, which was a ton of fun!

Here are a few of the cards that I made over the weekend...

These first three cards are all made with stamps from the Tis The Season stamp set. I'm really loving this stamp set. I just got it last month and it's one of those great stamp sets that has everything you need all in one. I could easily make all of my christmas cards, tags, & bags with just this one set!



In this last one, the 'Joy to the World' stamp in the background is also from Tis The Season. The little tree stamp is from the Cheers stamp set. I colored in the tree with Christmas Red and Green Stickles. Around the bottom I tied some Red and Green Scrapper's Floss. If you haven't heard me say it already, Scrapper's Floss is one of my favorite embellishments. And talk about bang for your buck...you get 30 yards of it for $2.95. It just doesn't get much better than that! I really like how this card turned out; so sparkly and fun!

Double Stuff Embossing Part II

Well, I have done some more playing around with this double embossing with the Cuttlebug. Maggieliz over on GW posted some pictures of some backgrounds that she made with Alcohol Inks and the Cuttlebug embossing folders on her picture trail site: http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=18149906&uid=750005 . They are gorgeous! She wrote me and asked if I would play around with what she had done and do a tutorial. So, here goes.

For this one, you will use white glossy cardstock. I do not have any Alcohol Inks, so instead I used my Palette Hybrid Inks. Here are the general supplies for the card I ended up making: Snowflakes Cuttlebug embossing folder, Brayer, Embossing Stamp Pad, White Embossing Powder, Prussian Blue Palette Ink Pad.


Start off by applying the ink directly from the ink pad to the glossy cardstock. Just keep working the pad across the entire surface until you have the look that you want. When the ink is completely dry, place it in the embossing folder and run it through the Cuttlebug. Letting the ink dry is very important to keep the embossing powder from sticking to it later.

Note: You can speed up the drying process with your heat gun!

Next, ink up your brayer with the Embossing ink. I have used a regular embossing pad, but you can also use a VersaMark pad to do this. Roll the ink over the entire surface, until you have all of the raised design inked.

Sprinkle on your white embossing powder. After you have completely covered the area, dump off the excess. You can clean off any excess embossing powder with a small paint brush.

Heat the embossing powder with your heat tool until all of the powder is melted.

When you are done embossing, your paper will look like this. Not only do you have those beautiful, bright white snowflakes, but if you look at the blue in the background, you can see all of the swirling color. In real life you can see all the gloss of the cardstock and it is gorgeous!

Here is the card that I went on to make with my paper. I put it on a white card so that the blue would really pop out. Because the background is so pretty I tried to keep what I was adding on top of it very simple and small so that I didn't end up covering too much of it up.

Things to try: Definitely try the alcohol inks like Maggieliz did, if you have them. On this one I just used a single color. Play around with more ink colors to create different looks.

~Michelle

Double Stuff Embossing!

Well, I have been playing more with the Cuttlebug embossing folders. These things really are a lot of fun to use! This one I have decided to call Double Stuff Embossing, as it involves embossing twice, in two different ways. Dry embossing with the Cuttlebug, and heat embossing with regular embossing powder.

Here are the general supplies that I used for this project: Cuttlebug Snowflakes embossing folder, Scrapper's Floss, Sparkle Embossing Powder, Embossing Stamp Pad, Noir Palette Pad, Prismacolor Pencils, Snowflake Brads, For All Seasons stamp set, Anti-Static bag, small paint brush, Heat Embossing Tool. In this particular card I used white, dark blue and light blue cardstock, but you use whatever you want!



The first thing I did was run my blue cardstock through the Cuttlebug using the Snowflakes embossing folder. Rub the anti-static bag across the paper. Give it a good coat so that you will have minimal excess embossing powder sticking to the paper.


Next, I used the Embossing Stamp Pad and ran it across the top of the embossed design. Be careful not to press down too hard, so that you do not ink the areas inbetween the design. You will be able to see when you have a good coat of ink because it will look wet.

Sprinkle the Sparkle Embossing Powder over all areas that you want embossed. Shake off the excess and use a small paint brush to clear any areas that have unwanted embossing powder. I did find that a lot of excess stays inbetween the designs. Most of it was easily gotten rid of with the paint brush, but some will inevidibly stay.

Heat the embossing powder with a heat gun until all of the powder is melted. This picture shows you the end result. If you look closely you can see the stray embossing powder between the designs. Since the Sparkle Embossing Powder is just clear powder with glitter in it, the strays just add a little extra sparkle! I am going to play with some colored powders as well, to see how they turn out.

Now that it is done you can trim it down to the size you want and use in on a card or other project. Here is a card that I made with mine. Glitter doesn't show up all that well in pictures, so this is much more sparkly in real life. It is really beautiful!

This is my first real attempt that this double embossing, and I really like the way it turned out. Those sparkly blue snowflakes are gorgeous and really add a lot of "wow" to the card! I can't wait to try different powders and different embossing folders to see how they will turn out.

~Michelle

Cuttlebug 'Smoosh' Experiment

There has been so much talk just lately about that elusive "Cuttlebug Smoosh" technique that was in a recent Technique Junkies newsletter. Provo Craft even addressed questions about it on their blog. Since I don't subscribe to the newsletter and have only seen samples made using this technique, I decided to do a little bit of an experiment to see what I could come up with on my own.

All of my experimenting was done on plain white cardstock. When inking the embossing folders I used dye ink, which easily rinses out with water.


Experiment #1:

Here is what I used...Snowflake Cuttlebug embossing folder, make-up sponge, and a VersaMagic re-inker.



After I ran my white cardstock through my Cuttlebug, I simply applied the VersaMagic ink directly to the paper with a make-up sponge. Just keep applying ink until you reach your desired color.



Here is the finished product. I added more ink to darken up some areas just to make it look more interesting.

Conclusion: The paper from this first one turned out very pretty, but it does not resemble the 'Smoosh' technique.

Experiment #2:

Here is what I used...A brayer, the Swirls Cuttlebug embossing folder, and a Fruitcake Kaleidacolor ink pad.

I started by brayering the ink directly onto the embossing folder. Notice that I am doing it on the side of the folder that has the Cuttlebug name printed on it. Once fully inked, I put the white cardstock in, and ran it through the Cuttlbug.

This is what it looks like when it comes out. The ink does not get down into the detail, which is what ends up raised. As you can see, it is still white.

To color what was left white I just ran my brayer over the paper directly. For this one I didn't even re-ink it, there was still plenty of ink on my brayer and I didn't want it to be darker than the background.

Conclusion: This one looks really close, to me. I have noticed in some of the samples I have seen online that they seem to be done with two colors of ink. This particular way would allow for that because you could ink your embossing folder with one color, then brayer over the top with a different color. That could be very pretty!

Possible Option: Instead of brayering the ink onto the embossing folder, you could try to sponge the ink on and try to get it down into all of the grooves. Sponging the ink will probably take longer though, and your coverage is more likely to be uneven.

Experiment #3: I used the same supplies for this one as I did in #2. The Swirls Cuttlebug embossing folder, a brayer, and a Fruitcake Kaleidacolor ink pad.

For this one I ran my white cardstock through the Cuttlebug.

Instead of inking the embossing folder, I used my brayer and went over the cardstock after it was embossed. To hit the raised pattern and the background, you really have to push down. Use two hands if you have to, that is what I did.

When you are done, your cardstock will look like this. Notice the white areas. Because the paper was already embossed your brayer will not touch all of the background leaving those white lines around the detail, which I think is a really neat effect.

Conclusion: This one looks really good too. The result is definitely much darker since you are repeatedly going over the paper. One nice thing about this method is that there is a little less clean-up, since you don't ink the embossing folder. Plus, you don't have to worry about staining your folder if that is a possible concern.

In the end: The last two methods that I tried are definitely the closest. Are either of them completely right? I have no idea, but they have to be awfully close. The important thing though, is that I had a lot of fun playing and even if it isn't exact, I have 3 new ways to make interesting and beautiful backgrounds!

Hopefully you will give these a try too. If you do, let me know, I would love to see your creations!

~Michelle

Not Your Traditional Christmas Card

Spoiler Alert: If you are in the Non-traditional Christmas Color card swap over on MWS, then you probably don't want to be peeking at this card!

For everyone else, this is the card that I made for a Non-traditional Christmas Color card swap that I joined. The rules of the swap are that you are to make a Christmas card where you do not use the typical red and green. I tried to stay away from the blue and pink snowflake themes because I figured next to red and green, those would be the next most common. So I went with brown...

Now that it is done, it looks like a cowboy/western Christmas to me. Something about the browns and the inked edges; it just has a really rustic look to it. I used copper brads, which really adds to the effect. I'm going to pull out some gingerbread stamps and use this same color scheme, that should be cute!

For this card I used the new Ornamental Joy stamp from the fall supplement and the background is stamped with a flourish stamp from Curls & Swirls. The card base is basic Brown, and the Joy is stamped on Kraft cardstock. Everything is stamped and the edges are inked with the Burnt Umber Palette pad and I used the corner rounder to round all of the edges.

Let It Snow!

I know, it's only October, but I can dream, can't I? I always look forward to snow in the winter. This card is the combination of 2 different challenges. One was the challenge on Gingerwood to use an image that you haven't used in 2-3 years, and the second challenge is Dawn's sketch challenge from 2Peas. I have had the stamp set that this little snowman is from for about 5 years. It is from a set from The Angel Company called Fall Sampler, and it was one that I got in my starter kit when I became an Angel! Isn't he cute?

Since then, I have bought so many stamps! Especially Christmas stamps. This challenge was a great reminder to pull out the old and make it new again. Now that I have dug the stamp set out again, I plan to put it to good use again.

Paper Bag Card Tutorial

Supplies: Lil Craft Sacs (Wal-Mart), Crop-a-dile, tape runner, Centering Ruler, Merry Wishes Soar With It Paper Collection, Red Bazzill Papers, Green Bazzill Papers, Whimsical Greetings stamp set, Fun Filled Holidays stamp set, Mini Round Tab Punch, Paper Piercer, Ribbon, Eyelets, Snowflake Brad.





Start by laying your paper bag out with the bottom of the bag facing upward and on your left.

Run your tape runner along the edges of the paper bag and then fold it in half. This forms the body of your card.

Your card will now look like this...

Cut a piece of paterned paper to adhere to the front of your card. Since there are many different sizes of bags on the market, just measure the front to see what size you need.

I used my centering ruler to determine where to place my eyelets. I marked one at the top and one at the bottom using a pen.

Once you have the spots where you want your eyelets to be set, punch the holes and set an eyelet in each hole using the Crop-a-dile. If you don't have a Crop-a-dile, you can use whatever eyelet setting tool you have.

With the eyelets set in place, you can now run your ribbon through the holes and tie a bow as shown.

Continue to decorate the front of the card. I used the letter "B" from the Merry Wishes paper pack and layered it onto the dark red, and dark green from the Bazzill paper packs. I stamped "Merry" in the bottom right corner. You can decorate the front of yours however you wish!

Now you will also want to cut a piece of cardstock to go inside the paper bag. Again, since the bag sizes will vary, just cut it slightly smaller than the size of the bag. In this case, since I set eyelets on the left side I only measured up to the eyelets since the card will only slide in up to there.

Stamp your sentiment on the inside and adhere a tab to the side of the card. I used the Mini Round tab punch to make mine. I pierced a hole in the center of the tab with the paper piercer and attached a snowflake brad to it.

Now just slide the card into your paper bag!

Here is a picture of the completed card. The tab sticks out on the right so that your recipient can clearly see to pull the inner card out.

Making these is so much fun, and just imagine how fun they are to receive! What I have shown you here is just one. Play around with the different sizes and colors of bags that are out there and you will be amazed at what you can come up with.

~Michelle

October TAC Specials!

If you haven't seen the October Specials from The Angel Company, don't worry, it is not too late! You can get any of these special prices until October 31st. Click on any of the pictures below to see it full size.


First is the October Kaleidoscope Kit...


Click here to order your Kit or to see more detail!



The October SOTM is "Days Like This". Get the adorable stamp set below for just $5.95 with any $30 purchase. Click here to order!


Plus, during the month of October you can get the Country Cottage, Metropolis, and Lap of Luxury Designer Collection pads for just $3.50 (reg. price $6.95)!

If you have any questions about any of this months specials, just send me an e-mail at webstampers@cox.net .

Happy Stamping Everyone!

SOF Bird Challenge

Ok, here is my last challenge project for Stamptoberfest. The challenge for this one was to use bird stamps. I used the new stamp set from TAC's Fall Supplement, Birdie Holiday, which is very pretty if you haven't seen it already. If you haven't checked out the Fall Supplement yet, you should...It is full of brand new stamp sets for the holidays! The background on this one is done with the Cuttlebug Swirls embossing folder. It is on matchmakers cardstock which has the white core so I sanded over the embossing to give it a distressed look. I'm loving the look, so I will be playing with it some more!

Stamptoberfest Color Sketch Challenge Card

I love Halloween! That is what made this challenge even more fun. We were provided a sketch to use as the basis of our card design, then we were to use the colors purple, orange, and green. Perfect colors for Halloween!
The cat and the sentiment stamp are both from Happy Haunting, which has been a favorite of mine for a long time now. The little stamps on the green card are a combination of two sets; Blossom Builders and Creepy Crawlies. I really like the asterisk and bullsey looking stamps from Blossom Builders. They can be used for so much more than making flowers! The paterned paper is from the Simply Spooky paper pack.

True Meaning Of Christmas SOF Challenge

This was one of those cards that I just wasn't liking to start with. The colors were a bit hard to match up, the ribbon dealt me a fit, my bottle of Stickles kept clogging up on me, and it just was not looking right. In the end it all finally came together, and I really like the way it turned out; it just took a while to get there!

This is another SOF challenge card. The basic layout is taken from a sketch that ConnieP provided over on 2Peas for her Sketch challenge. Then I decided that I would go with the Christmas theme for Dawn's True Meaning Of Christmas challenge.

The thing that I really love about Christmas is the happiness or Joy that everyone seems to carry with them through the Christmas season. Even though that joy can come from completely different things. For some it is because it is a season that celebrates their chosen faith, and for others it is simply the time that they spend with their family and friends that brings them joy. And let's face it, we all love presents! I don't mean in a greedy "gimme" sort of way either. Honestly, it doesn't matter where that joy comes from; it's just nice to see everyone a little happier, more tolerant, cheerful, and more giving than usual!

The swirly paper on the left is done with a Cuttlebug embossing folder and colored with the Fruitcake Kaleidacolor pad. I stamped Ornamental Joy with the Red Magic VersaMagic pad, and added some Christmas Red Stickles just to add a little sparkle. The "to the world" stamp is from Tis The Season. It actually says "Joy to the World", so I just omitted the word "Joy" when I inked it with the black ink.

Thanksgiving Dinner SOF Challenge

One of the SOF challenges is to make something for the Thanksgiving Dinner table, so I have made a place card.
The flower is one of the White Florals that I just brayered over with the Autumn Leaves Kaleidacolor pad. Super simple to do and you can make your flowers match any project! The background is stamped with the Autumn Leaves Kaleidacolor Pad, and the name strip is sponged with the same ink. The background stamp is from Curls & Swirls, and the letters are from Mini -bet. I'm so glad that I finally got Mini-bet. Not only is it one of the least expensive alpha's that I have bought ($7.95), but it is quickly becoming one of my most used. The letters are small enough that they will fit on just about anything.

If you haven't checked out Stamptoberfest yet over on 2Peas, you should. These challenges are a lot of fun!

SOF Tag Stamps Challenge Card

Here is another SOF Challenge card. The challenge for this one was to use a tag stamp on your card. I have had this set of tags for a long time now, and I really need to use them more because they are so great. I now have the tag stamps sitting out on my table and I am going to put them to work!
I used the Fun Tags stamp set for my purple tag. I set an eyelet in the top to give it a more finished look and to run my ribbon through. The flourish stamp in the background is from Curls & Swirls and the sentiment is from Pumpkins. The paterned paper is from the Simply Spooky Pad, and let me tell you, these papers are just too cute! So much fun for Halloween! The pumpkin on the tag is from a sheet of stickers that I picked up at Michael's in their dollar section. Now i'm wishing I would have picked up more :-)

Brighten Your Day Challenge

I finally got around to completing a challenge card for Stamptoberfest (SOF). This one is for the Brighten Your Day challenge...
The challenge specified that your card must be done using flower stamps so I used Salsa Flowers . I wanted bright and cheery colors so I used the Cha Cha Cardstock and the tag across the bottom is from the Cha Cha Soar With It Collection. These colors will brighten anyone's day! Now i'm off, hopefully to make some more challenge cards!