justBstamping.blogspot.ca: September 2017

Monday 25 September 2017

A Quilted Birthday

I have the special honour of sharing a birthday with my incredible mother, which just happens to be tomorrow. My mother raised five children--four of them girls--and is my hero as I struggle to raise one girl! As my daughter embeds herself into the pre-teen years I have found a new respect for my mom. :)

My mom is an avid and accomplished quilter, winner of the top prizes at our Fall Fair for as long as I can remember. Everyone in my family has at least one quilt, made specifically for them, with colours and themes all their own. There's no other way to say it: She makes stunning quilts. Unfortunately, that skill did not transfer to me! I love helping to pick out fabrics, which is much like choosing beautiful patterned paper, and I made a small baby quilt when expecting my oldest, but that's as far as I have ever gotten. When I saw Stampin' Up's new Quilted Christmas suite, I knew that I would be using it to make something special for my Mom.

The centre quilted square was created with a paper pieced die (Quilt Builder) that was so much fun to play with! I used some retired DSP and spent a lot of time playing with the placement. The coordinating stamp set also has some patterns that you can use to stamp cardstock with (like I did previously on my baby card), and I used one to "stitch" around the star. That was the fun part!

I'll be honest--I STRUGGLED with the log cabin background I designed to go with the quilted square. As much as I have admired my Mom's skill in the past, I had no idea how difficult it really is to line up those corners and get everything the right size! It seems so easy, but if one piece goes wonky, by the end, the whole thing is off-kilter! I used the Quilt Top Embossing Folder to "quilt" my background, before adhering my star quilt block to the centre of the card, and finished it off with a rhinestone in the centre.

Here is a close up:

I know I'll be using this set a lot in the future--but I think I'll stick with plain backgrounds, and leave the fancy stuff to the true quilters out there!

Happy Birthday Mom!

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Friday 15 September 2017

Thankful

My goodness, where do the days go?! It's time for another blog hop already! I have spent the last several weeks working on samples for the open house I held last weekend, so time has sped by. :)

This month's blog theme was "fall cards." I love the change of seasons we get in Ontario--just when you start to get sick of one season, the next one comes along! I don't think I could live somewhere that doesn't have Fall, it's my favourite. The colours, the crisp morning air--so clichéd, and yet something I look forward to all year long. We're off to a cool start already, and the leaves are just starting to turn, so it will be a Fall Wonderland soon enough!

The card I am sharing this month uses the new Painted Harvest set. It features a gorgeous two-step stamping flower, which, when inked in yellow, makes a beautiful sunflower. But this set is more versatile than you may think at first! Inked in other colours the flower can easily be recognized in spring or summer too. (I cased an example from Pinterest for my Open House, which you can see at the end of this post). I've provided a list of supplies I used at the bottom of this post, and you can buy them for yourself by clicking the store icon on the right side of this page.

Here is my card, inspired by some ideas on Pinterest:

What can I say, I'm still stuck on watercolouring! This one got away from me a bit, but it grows on me more every time I look at it. I started by watercolouring a background in Berry Burst and Pink Flamingo--I know, not your typical fall colours! But I really think it helped the overall card look like fall, after I layered the more traditional colours on top. And I love how the colours didn't lose their vibrancy.

Once that layer was dry (I was too impatient to wait, so I used my embossing gun to speed up the process), I then stamped the two flower images, once in Crushed Curry and once in Cajun Craze, three times on the watercolour paper. I also stamped the centre of the flowers with Soft Suede. Then came the fun part! I sprayed the stamped image with water, and all of the stamp lines started to blend and soften. I also used my Aquapainter to help make the effect even more watery. I just kept adding more water and moving the colour around until I got an overall image that I liked. Once that layer was dry, I splattered some Early Espresso ink onto the background, and stamped the sentiment in Archival Basic Black in the top right corner. I also stamped some "seeds" in the centre of each flower in Early Espresso.

The rest was very quick and easy! I layered the watercolour piece onto a base of Early Espresso, and then tied a big lovely bow with the Linen Thread--I love that stuff!!! I mounted it all onto a Thick Whisper White card base, and at the last minute added some clear Wink of Stella to the outside of the centre of each flower, which really makes the final look so pretty. I left the inside blank, so that it could be personalized for whatever specific instance the giver is using it for.

Here is a close up, where you can see a few specks of the Wink of Stella, and that pretty bow:

And here is the same stamp set using other colours. You can really see the details created by the stamp--amazingly, each of these flowers uses just one ink colour, but the stamp is designed to give a beautiful layered look!