It's beautiful in pink

Here's a wheeled vision in pink. I wheeled the It's Beautiful jumbo wheel in rose red ink on a strip of pretty in pink card stock. I know it's hard to see in the photo, but I paper pierced along some of the stamped dots, which creates a nice texture in person. I added some whisper white taffeta ribbon and mats of rose red and whisper white, then mounted the completed strip on a regal rose base.

I stamped the sentiment from All holidays on whisper white card stock in Rose Red and i stamped the soft dotted swirl from the Stitched exotics set along the edges in pretty in pink ink. I punched the corners with my ticket corner punch and mounted the sentiment on a mat of rose red card stock. I then used my paper piercing mat to pierce the edges and corner of the mat and added the sentiment to the card front.

wheeled gift bag

Here's another project I'm considering for the wheel class - a gift bag with coordinating gift tag and tissue stamped entirely using one wheel and one sentiment stamp. It's amazing how quick and easy it is to put this project together, and it truly is one of the most useful things I have every learned to stamp.

Best of all, this project actually serves a dual purpose since wheeling tissue paper is a fabulous way to practice using the wheels. Most of the time we crumple up tissue anyway, so it doesn't matter if the wheeling isn't perfect. And after a few runs across tissue paper most stampers get the feel for the wheel and are much more comfortable wheeling on card stock.

I'm still working on a few other potential projects before I narrow down what will and will not be featured at the class. Hopefully you'll see another wheeled project tomorrow.

Mixed Media

Remember last week's pillow CASE challenge? Today's card is not so much a CASE as an inspiration. I really had no intention of stamping another card based on that lovely bedding ensemble, but as I was cleaning my craft center today I found some pictures that I took a couple of years ago intending to incorporate them into cards. Well, I obviously didn't make the cards two years ago, but looking at this photo made me think of last Sunday's card and I knew I would have to make another.

Because the main image is a photograph, it was a really simple card. first I stamped the green galore card base with a stamp from Boho Backgrounds in craft white ink. Then I added a whisper white and pretty in pink mats to the photo and attached the whole thing to the card front. Last I stamped the sentiment from All Holidays in pretty in pink on whisper white card stock, punched it out with a small oval punch, added a large oval pretty in pink mat and attached it to the card front.

Super simple and a bit unusual for me, but sometimes it's good to mix things up!

Another gift certificate holder

Tonight I had a play date with my friend Barb -- we went to see Baby Mama and then went out for ice cream at Uncle Harry's (the best ice cream parlor in the world!) The movie was great -- very funny but also poignant. The perfect movie to see with a girlfriend. It was perfect to see it with Barb because neither of our husbands wanted anything to do with this type of movie, so we had a fun girls' night out. We decided we needed to do this more often so we made plans to see "You don't mess with the Zohan" when that comes out. Barb's sister will come out with us for that one too, so we'll have a great time. Can't wait!



Anyway, I didn't have time to stamp or photograph my new stuff tonight, so I'm reaching into my projects from earlier in the month that I never had a chance to upload. This was another gift certificate holder. I used Groovy Guava for the base and ginger blossom paper to decorate the certificate holder. The title was stamped with Wonderful Favorites. The rest of the stamping was done with the Embrace Life set. This time I decided to go with a belly band closure. I made the belly band out of a crimped piece of ginger blossom paper with the flower form Embrace Life added to cover the seam. I also added a strip of the same crimped paper to the front of the certificate holder so that when the belly band is on the holder looks like a package wrapped in ribbon. I though it turned out very pretty, so I'll be using this idea again in the future!

Wheeled neighborhood

I spent a lot of time today bonding with my wheels to design cards for my June "You Spin Me 'Round" wheel class. The trouble is that I'm having a hard time narrowing down the projects and techniques I want to teach in the class, so I'm still not sure if this card will make the final class project cut. But I do like it, so I wanted to share it with you tonight.

This card uses one of the most basic wheel techniques -- wheeling an outline image and coloring it for use as a main focal point on a card. Some other wheels that would work well with this technique are Matey's Map Jumbo Wheel, any of the Dilly Dally Jumbo Wheels, Blooms and Bulbs, Tailgating and Time for a Tree.

I started the card by wheeling the Neighborhood jumbo wheel in basic black ink on a piece of 2x5.5" confetti white card stock. I then colored the image using stampin' write markers in various colors.

I liked the multi-color image, but wanted to add dimension without loading the card up with accessories, so I used more confetti white card stock to wheel a couple of the houses again. I colored them in the same colors as the main image, cut them out using my paper snips and attached them to the card front with dimensionals. You can sort of see this a bit better in this close-up. In person this little detail really adds a nice touch.

I added a mat of always artichoke card stock to the image strip and used my paper piercing tool and template to pierce the always artichoke card stock below and above the image. I attached the ready strip to the more mustard card base and stamped the "Welcome" sentiment from the Warm Words set in basic black ink.

And that's it for my simple wheeled card. Hope you liked it as much as I do!

Card Organizer Tin

Tonight I want to show you the cute card organizer tin we'll be making at the June 21st morning class. We'll be using cutie pie designer paper, Taffy and Rough Edges alphabet stamps, and lots of brads and ribbons to decorate the lunchbox tins and make 12 dividers. At the end of the class you will have a great box to keep all your cards and envelopes for different occasions as they come up, month by month.

Or, if you prefer, you could title the dividers differently and organize your cards by occasion types. Or you could forget about cards altogether and turn this into a recipe tin or something else altogether -- the only limit is your imagination.

Make one of these for yourself or make one for a friend and fill it with cards for a truly unique gift.

This is what the tin will look like on the inside, complete with a pen holder and a pocket in the lid for stamps and return address labels. In addition, there will be a printed table attached to every divider to write in the date, occasions, name of the card recipient and a description of the card (to make sure you never give anyone the same card twice, of course). I will also provide an electronic file with the template for the table so you'll be able to print off as many as you need for years to come.

This class will take place in Itasca on Saturday, June 21, 2008, 10 a.m. - noon. Registration and class fee of $20 will be due on or before June 10. The class will be limited to 10 students. Space permitting after June 8, club members will be able to choose this as their June class and attend at a reduced fee of $5.00.

If you would like to complete this project but cannot make it to class, the class kit will be available by mail. The cost will be $20 plus shipping. Shipping via USPS priority mail and is $9.80 for one or two kits shipped to the same address or $12.90 for 3 kits shipped to the same address. The class kit will include the tin and all materials necessary to make the project, including a stamped caption of your choice, except for adhesive (I recommend sticky strip), stamps and ink to stamp the dividers. Orders must be placed by June 10 and all kits will be shipped on June 23.

To register and make payment arrangements e-mail me at stampwithdiane@comcast.net or call me at 847-452-8285. I accept cash, check, visa, master card, discover or paypal.

Another gift card tutorial

Sometimes I get on a roll and I just can't stop working with a certain stamp set or layout or color combination. This week I can't seem to stop working on different gift/cash holder cards. So today I'm uploading yet another gift card holder tutorial and this one is very similar to the tutorial from Saturday, except that it's a bit more detailed and it shows you how to make this style of card in the standard A2 (4.25x5.5") format.

I started with an 8.5x5.5" piece of close to cocoa card stock and scored it at 4.25, 6, and 7.75". Then I bent the card stock along the fold lines into a modified "w" so that it looked like this photo.

Next I took a piece of pretty in pink card stock cut to 4.25x5.5 and added a couple of pieces of sticky strip along one edge. I also added three pieces of sticky strip along the edge of the short flap on my close to cocoa "W". Using sticky strip here may have been a bit overkill and SNAIL might have done very well, but I wanted to make sure that these two pieces will never separate, and since there might be some extra stress on the pink piece which will functions as a card front, I thought better safe than sorry.

Before I attached the pretty in pink piece to the rest of the card base, I added some pretty in pink gingham ribbons (faux knot, of course!) to the 3/4" flap.
This is what the card base looked like after I peeled off the red protective tape and adhered the pretty in pink card stock to the close to cocoa card base.

Next I needed to punch the gift card holder along the center fold. To do this I punched a horizontal half of a word window shape with my word window punch as shown in this photo.
I then moved the word window punch over and punched another half word window shape, as shown in this photo.


I then used the 3/4" punch to punch a semi-circle between the two word window shapes. Please note that this is a smaller circle punch than the one I used on my last card. The reason for this is that due to the different size of this card, the gift card pocket is not as "deep" so the semicircle does not serve as much of a practical as a decorative purpose. Since it is mostly decorative, it can be a little smaller.

After I was done punching, I added a few pieces of sticky strip on the back of the card front as shown in this photo, peeled the red tape off and folded the center together to form the gift card pocket. I also added a strip of Berry Bliss designer paper to the card front.

I continued to decorate the card front by punching a large oval from the pretty in pink section of the front. I took a piece of whisper white card stock and stamped the "you Look Fabulous sentiment in chocolate chip ink. I punched the sentiment out using the small oval punch and sponged the edges with pretty in pink ink. I then used a dimensional and adhered the sentiment to the back of the base centered in the large oval hole punched in the card front.

Because I wanted this card to really resemble a regular card, I took a couple of pieces of sticky strip and attached the gift card pocket to the back of the card base.

Then it was time to finish the card front decoration. I stamped the pregnant gal image from the "She's All That" set on a piece of whisper white card stock in chocolate chip ink and sponged the edges of the card stock with pretty in pink ink. I centered the stamped image on a piece of close to cocoa card stock and attached the matted image to the card front. I then took two close to cocoa square buttons from the neutrals buttons assortment, threaded them with linen thread so that the knots were in the back of the buttons and attached the buttons to the card front with mini glue dots.

And here is what the finished card front looks like. I think it's so cute! I like the inside too, of course. the gift card pocket works well for gift cards, checks or cash! And the best part is that it's a standard card size, so no special envelopes are required. Woo hoo!

Hope you liked this tutorial. It may be the last of the gift card holders. Then again, you never know. Another inspiration may strike tomorrow!

Pillow CASE Sunday Challenge

ETA: Well, here it is. This Sunday's Pillow CASE card. Actually, if you look at the inspiration ensemble (second photo), I actually kind of CASEd 2 pillows. The green and white striped pattern in the background is from one set of shams and, of course, the flowery pattern is form the other shams.

Just for a little more contract I added some Rose red mats and some regal rose wide grosgrain ribbon. The sentiment from Amazing to Zany is stamped on whisper white in rose red and punched out with the 1 inch circle punch, which is layered on a large oval punched out of pretty in pink and a designer label punched out of rose red. I stamped the main image on whisper white with chocolate chip and regal rose markers (using the direct to stamp technique) and colored everything in using rose red, regal rose, pretty in pink and gable green stampin' write markers. The card base is also gable green.

I love the card as much as I loved the inspiration bedding ensemble and i really loved being able to achieve this look so easily with my stampin' write markers. If you want your very own set of markers in the awesome carrying caddy join my marker club! Check out the details here or contact me for more information.

They say the definition of being crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, so I guess I have to be a little bit crazy to keep posting a Sunday challenge when no one else besides me wants to play along, right?

Well, either I'm crazy or I learned how to play well by myself growing up without any siblings or a little bit of both, but I'm having too much fun with these challenges and I found way too many cool pillows to inspire me to stop now. So here's the bedding ensemble that I will use as my inspiration for this week's card. Watch this post for a new upload tomorrow!

Gift Card Holder Tutorial

I am absolutely loving my She's All That set! What a fabulous addition to my stamp stash this set has turned out to be. I'm just crossing all my fingers and toes that this set makes it into the fall winter catalog, because I do not want to stop using it at the end of June!

The birthday cake girl was really perfect for this gift card holder. I simply stamped her in versamark on regal rose card stock and embossed her with white embossing powder. I did the same thing with the sentiment and punched it out with the small oval punch. (As you can probably guess, I custom mounted this set so that the sentiments are separate from the images, making this type of card a lot easier to stamp.)

I added a tempting turquoise mat to the image and the sentiment and used SNAIL to adhere both to a 5 3/4 x 2 3/4" piece of Flowers for You designer paper (if you like this paper and the colors in it as much as I do you will want to get it before August -- this designer paper coordiantes with this year's Ronald McDonald set, so it's pretty certain to retire at the end of this catalog). I then used my Crop-A-Dial to punch two 1/8" holes and threaded some tempting turquoise narrow grosgrain through the holes to create a faux bow. I then set the fully assembled piece aside to make the card base.

For the base I used an 11 x 6" piece of Lovely Lilac card stock, scored along the 11" side at 3, 5.5 and 8 inches. I then folded the base along the score lines so that it looked like the letter W.

I then used my word window punch to punch along the center fold. You want to punch exactly 1/2 of the word window width and approximately 2 lengths. The center of the fold doesn't look too great a t this point, but it is easily fixed by punching a half circle with the 1" circle punch. At the end of all the punching your card should look like this photo.

At this point you will want to open the card and apply sticky strip in the back of the card stock as shown in this photo. Peel the red tape and fond the card again to finish your card base.

As a final step before adding the decorated card front, take a piece of narrow grosgrain ribbon and cut a long enough piece to enable you to tie the ends into a bow. Secure the ribbon to the front of the card base with a couple of pieces of sticky strip, as shown in this photo. If desired, you can secure the ribbon to the back of the card base with SNAIL, or you can leave it loose. (By the way, the binder clip is only nn this picture to serve as an extra set of hands while I'm taking the photo -- you don't need it to make your card)

Then you just need to SNAIL the pre-decorated card front to the front of the base and your gift card holder is done. After you insert your gift card into the center fold you can tie a bow to keep the gift card holder closed.

As with the money holder I showed you yesterday, this gift card holder is sized perfectly to fit into the small open end envelopes. Pretty nifty, if I do say so myself.

Another Money Holder

This is yet another card we made at Wednesday's money/gift card holder class. I like the way this one turned out because it's relatively simple and can be used for so many occasions. It's a scaled down version of the gift certificate holder I posted recently, except that this card is sized pretty precisely to hold US $ bills and to fit into the Stampin' Up! small open end envelopes.

The construction is pretty basic. Start with a 6 5/8x7 3/8" brilliant blue base scored along the longer edge at 2 1/4 and 5 3/8 inches to create two overlapping flaps. Take a piece of 2 x 6.25 inch yo yo yellow card stock, tie a piece of pumpkin pie striped ribbon around it (or, if you're like me and can't tie a decent know without cheating, use the Waxyo cheater knot) and attach it to the outside of the top flap (the flap that's 2.25" wide). Stamp the large star from the classic backgrounds set with brilliant blue ink on whisper white card stock. Use the small star punch to punch out the center, then use the large star punch to punch out the star. Punch another large star from pumpkin pie card stock and attach the outline star directly over the pumpkin pie star. Stamp another brilliant blue star on whisper white cards stock and punch it out with the small star punch. Stamp the sentiment of your choice (I used the congratulations stamp from the Birthday Hugs and Wishes set) in brilliant blue and attach the stars with dimensionals.

On the underside of the top flap attach a piece of 2 x 6.25 inch whisper white card stock with one large star stamped in brilliant blue and layer a small star punched out of pumpkin pie card stock in the center. Leave the rest of the panel blank to write in your message to the card recipient.

Take a piece of 1.75 x 6.25 inch pumpkin pie card stock and punch 2 tabs with a slit punch. This piece is sized so that you should be able to insert the slit punch all the way in and the tabs will be perfectly positioned to hold down the top card flap. Stamp the pumpkin pie card stock with the small stars from the classic backgrounds set and center it on the outside of the bottom panel so that it's visible when the panel is flipped up.

Now comes the hardest part of the card. You need to secure the flap up and to make sure that the adhesive you use is strong but narrow. You could use a line of Tombow mono-multi, but I prefer sticky strip. The only problem is that sticky strip is too wide for this application, so I actually split my length of sticky strip in half so that each side was only 1/8" wide. Sticky strip is plenty strong even at 1/2 its width and this way there is plenty of room to insert the cash with a little wiggle room and no worries about the money sticking to glue that may have leaked out from the seam.

Gift Card Holder

To everyone who subscribes to my blog updates via e-mail -- my apologies. I've been having horrible problems with my PC for a few months now and today the crashes just kept coming and coming relentlessly. Finally I gave up and came to work on my lap top, but the photo editing software I have installed here is awful -- it takes two programs to do what I can do in one on my PC, which means at least twice as much time, which means I missed my midnight feedblitz deadline. Sorry!

To everyone else, never mind.

This was another card we made at Wednesday's gift card/money holder class. The front of the card may look familiar. That's because I CASEd it shamelessly from a card I made at Glenda's stamp camp a couple of months ago. I liked it so much I saw no need to reinvent the wheel and used the exact design except for the card orientation. I needed the card orientation to be horizontal instead of vertical for the gift card holder inside to work. Anyway, since I already talked about pretty much this very same card earlier, I'll just move right on to the inside.


And the inside is so easy! All you need is a piece of 3.75" x 5" card stock (in this case whisper white). This is the perfect size to allow you to punch two tabs by inserting the slit punch all the way in on each of the sides, leaving just enough room between to slip in a gift card (as shown in the photo). To pretty this up a bit, I stamped the edges with the three flower stamp form the Live Your Dream set. But basically that's it. Make two tabs and snail the card stock inside your standard size card. Pretty cool, huh?

Money Holder graduation card tutorial

Tonight I taught a class on how to make 4 different styles of money and gift card holders. I think they all turned out pretty cute and I'll be showing you all of them over the next few days, starting with this graduation money holder. Of course this is the front of the card, so it's not exactly exciting.

The card base is kraft. The mats are soft sky and a piece of east coast prep double sided designer series paper. The graduation cap is from Year after year stamped in basic black on whisper white card stock and then colored with wild wasabi ink and a blender pen (I also used a more mustard marker at the top of the tassel). The edges of the whisper white card stock were colored with soft sky ink using the direct to paper method and the image was adhered to a more mustard mat before being added to the card front.

The sentiment was stamped in basic black and wild wasabi on whisper white card stock, edged with soft sky and matted with more mustard before being attached to the card base. So far so ho-hum.


Inside the card is where things get a little more exciting. To decorate the card I stamped the graduation cap again with the hats off to you! sentiment from the Hattitude set (I won this set in a drawing held by my upline during Sale-A- Bration this year -- Thanks Jen! I love it!). I also stamped the congratulations from Birthday Hugs and Wishes, all in basic black.

You can see the money holder peeking out from the word window punched slot. I used the rough edges alphabet to stamp the word "pull" on the tab, just in case the tab alone was not enough of a clue.


When you do pull up the tab you get to the gift! Fun, isn't it? And not exactly complicated, either.


To make this type of card you start with a full 8.5x11 sheet of card stock and score it down the middle in each direction. Then you cut out the lower left hand quadrant and use the word window punch to punch a slot at the bottom of the lower right hand quadrant. Since this side of the lower right hand quadrant won;t be seen, you can actually draw yourself some guidelines to ensure straight punching. For this card I used a 1/2 inch margin from the top and the sides. After the slot was punched I added some sticky strip as shown in the photo.


I then peeled off the red liner tape and folded up the lower right hand quadrant. Now the card looked just like a regular 8.5 x 4.25" card.

I took a 4.75x3" piece of soft sky card stock and rounded all the corners. I then added several tabs using the slit punch. I made 3 tabs at the bottom and 2 at the top, but you could do the same number of tabs on both top and bottom. I punched a round tab piece out of wild wasabi card stock and adhered it to the top of the soft sky card stock. I then punched two 1/16" circles using a handheld punch and inserted two more mustard brads. Then I went back and decorated the card as shown in the photos above.

I'll actually be using this card for my cousin's graduation later this month. Hope he likes it!

Father's Day inspiration

Tonight I want to show you the second card I made based on this Sunday's Pillow CASE challenge. Admittedly, this is not a CASE (for those of you who have been puzzled by what CASE stands for -- it's Copy and Share Everything -- stamper's lingo for copying someone else's design). Rather than attempting to use the pillow design as a main feature on my card, I used it to create a color palette and I also created a "faux designer paper" strip to mirror the stripes on the pillow. (you can actually visualize this better if you look at the second photo, which shows the pillow in the same orientation as the stripes on the card.

Anyway, the color palette of this pillow seemed very masculine to me, so right away I knew that I would like to use it to make a Father's Day card. I grabbed my new For Father stamp set from the Occasions mini catalog and decided to go with the apple image. I stamped the image on naturals ivory card stock in basic brown ink and colored it using an aqua painter and classic inks in ruby red, old olive, more mustard, soft sky and chocolate chip. After the water coloring dried I used the fine tip of the chocolate chip stampin' write marker to color in the "Apples" sign.

I added a chocolate chip mat to the main image along with a picture hanger and brad from the aged copper hodgepodge hardware assortment and some more mustard narrow grosgrain ribbon. I attached the "faux designer paper" strip and the main image to the ruby red card base and added the Happy Father's Day sentiment from All Holidays which I stamped in basic brown on naturals ivory card stock and then cut apart into three pieces.

While this card may not be totally in the spirit of a CASE challenge, it's a good example of the ways you can use just about anything around you to inspire your artwork. So if you ever feel stuck just grab some fliers, catalogs or magazines and I guarantee within a few minutes you'll find the perfect jumping off point for your next creation!

My Pillow CASE

As promised, here is my first Pillow Case from this Sunday's challenge. I think it came out pretty well, although in my typical fashion I didn't leave quite enough white space and the flower from Older and Wiser turned out to be just a bit too large in scale. Still, overall I think I captured the feel of this bedding, so I guess I met the challenge.

As I mentioned, I used the flower from Older and Wiser to stamp the background on whisper white card stock with bashful blue, ballet blue, certainly celery and chocolate chip stampin' write markers. I used the Frames with a Flourish set to stamp the square frame in bashful blue ink on whisper white card stock and stamped the sentiment from Sincere Salutations in ballet blue, then added a ballet blue mat.

I punched two holes on either side of the frame with my 1/8" handheld hole punch and wove a piece of wide certainly celery grosgrain ribbon through the holes, attaching it at the back of the whisper white background. I punched the corners of the background layer with the ticket corner punch and then adhered the background layer to the bashful blue card front. As a final touch I punched 1/8" ballet blue circles with the handheld punch and adhered them in the corners of the card front.

If you don't remember what the inspiration looked like, here it is. So what do you think? Did I do a good job? And are you willing to take up my challenge and create a pillow CASE of your own?

cute duckies

Are you still working on your pillow CASE? I know I am. As predicted, I didn't have time to stamp this evening, so I will have to create and post my cards tomorrow.

In the meantime, here is the last of the cards from my single layer class. On this card I first wheeled the duckies at the bottom of the card and colored the ducks and water bubbles in with stampin' write markers. Using the wheel guide as my mask, I went back with my bashful blue chalk from the stampin' pastels and, using a cotton-tipped applicator I colored in the water. I used the stampin' Pastels to do this because it was the best way to achieve a soft color on the white card stock base.

I then stamped the Let the Cute Begin sentiment and colored the letters and onesie with my stampin' write marker. Using the brown paper backing from the dies cut stamp and the wheel guide as a mask, I used a sponge dauber and cotton tipped applicator to add so saffron chalk to the top of the card. I needed to use the cotton tipped applicator to get close enough to the wheel guide so there would be a definite line between the blue water below and the yellow background above.

Of course, I then went and covered the line by wrapping a piece of pumpkin pie striped ribbon around the card front. So now you can't see the line between the faux layers, but I know it's there!

Sunday Pillow CASE challenge

Tomorrow is Sunday which means a new Pillow CASE challenge. This time I'm posting two pillows to inspire you. Why? Well, first there are just too many gorgeous pillows out the re to limit yourself to one and, second, I wanted to provide color and style options.

I found the first photo in a sale flyer from The Great Indoors. This is a design called "Mille Righe" by Bellino. It's very soft and pretty and should provide a lot of inspiration.


I found the second pillow in the outdoors section of a Kohl's sale ad. Who said cool pillows are only found in the bedding section? What drew me to this pillow was the interesting color combination as well as the vertical stripe motif (another way to use those scrap strips!)

I will do my best to upload the cards inspired by these pillows tomorrow or Monday (I have a workshop tomorrow so I may to have a lot of time for leisure stamping). I hope you will join me. Remember, your cards may be replicas of the patterns seen in the pillows or they can just use the same color combinations or layout. I look forward to seeing everyone's creations!

Single layer graduation

This is the single layer graduation card we made at today's single layer stamp-a-stack. Surprisingly, I think this card turned out to be the day's favorite, even though it did involve the wonderful, yet sometimes temperamental, sticky strip.

The point was once again to make the card look like it was a multi-layer card without actually using more than a single layer of paper. To do this I started with a glossy white card base. I used basic black ink to stamp the cap and sentiment. I then masked the cap with a post-it note cut down to the appropriate size.

I added a sticky strip border around the post it note, making sure to leave the top red film in place. I then used the brayer to coat the unmasked card front with brocade blue ink. The trick to this is to go over each side of the card front several times to even out the ink distribution.

After the card front was evenly coated with ink, I removed the post-it mask and colored the cap in with my brocade blue stampin' write marker, adding a bit of silver with my zig painty at the top of the hat and tassel. Now it was time to peel the sticky strip and press the card front into a powder pal full of chunky black glitter. the glitter adhered to the sticky strip creating a really fun border.

The really fun part is that some of the ladies in class chose to modify this by using the present image from the Year after year set instead of the graduation cap. That turned out very cute as well! I think everyone was very happy with the class and all of the different techniques they learned to create a multi-layer look with just a simple card base.

Make a Wish

We return to the single layer card class with this little birthday card where I used punches and reverse masking to create a layered look. This is actually a very simple little card using only an apricot appeal base, pumpkin pie classic ink and chocolate chip craft ink, plus some chocolate chip poly twill ribbon for decoration. I hope the ladies in the class will like it!

Celebrate Your Day

I do have more single layer cards to show you, but just for a little variety I thought today I'd upload a celebration card I stamped recently using the embrace life set. I used naturals white card stock and basic black ink, then colored the cherry blossom images with my old olive, regal rose and rose red stampin' write markers. To reduce some of the white space I sponged in a little tempting turquoise in between the flowers.

I mounted the stamped strip on a mat of rose red and old olive, then added some regal rose wide grosgrain and attached the whole thing to a tempting turquoise base. To finish the card I just added the sentiment from the Celebrate Everything set stamped in basic black.

Single - but not for long!

As you might have guessed from the title of this post, this is another card for my single layer Stamp-A-Stack. This one is intended as a bridal shower card, for the soon to not be so single girl.
On this card I dry embossed the circles, then used a mask to sponge on the pretty in pink classic ink and added a stamped flower from the Simply Said set, colored with an almost amethyst stampin' write marker. The main image from the Big on Spring set was colored using regal rose, bashful blue, almost amethyst and certainly celery stampin' write markers, then covered with crystal effects and sprinkled with dazzling diamonds glitter. I also added glitter to the center of the flowers in the two borders.

I think this card succeeds in showing how you can create an illusion of a second layer of circles simply with some dry embossing and masked sponging. All that and it's sparkly too! Perfect for any bride to be.