Andrea's Stampin' Moments

What's Next?...Design Team Call!

Hi everyone, and welcome to my new look blog!  It's certainly different to my last banner :)  This one was once again designed by Michelle of Laycock Designs, and she has incorporated some designs from my upcoming stamp release!  Yes I am heading down a brand new path - nearly 9 months in the making - and have stamps and new embellishments on their way, so now all we need are some lovely ladies to join us.  Kylie, of Kylie's Cards and Things has already jumped on board and we would love 5 others to help us with the first ever Design Team.  Find all the details HERE.  More will be revealed over the coming weeks, so I hope you will pop back to see what's going on!

I do have a card to share with you today, and it uses the blog candy DSP from last weekends Freebie Friday, and sketch from Paper Craft Planet.

I've stamped the image - which is from OCL's Growing Gratitude - using Palette Burnt Umber on Vixen White cardstock.  The texture of this cardstock gives a lovely look to the coloured image, and seems to work well with Copics.

The images were then cut out and dimensional foam placed on the reverse side to raise.  The DSP was cut using a scallop square from the Classic Square Spellbinders set.  I've pierced a hole in each scallop and sponged the edges.  The scalloped square is also raised with dimensional foam, something that's a little hard to see in the photo.

These buttons are from the new 'Natural' range, and I just love how they are all just a little different.

Thanks for stopping by today,

Tutorial Tuesday - Emboss Resist

I had intended to do Crayon Resist today, but some how I had Emboss Resist on my mind, so that is what I did!

Emboss resist is a great technique, that can lead to some beautiful backgrounds.

I started with a plain white piece of cardstock and stamped my image using Versamark.

I coated the image using clear embossing powder, and heat set it. (At this stage you could brayer or sponge a light colour over your entire piece of cardstock, using a tissue or paper towel to wipe off excess ink on the embossed image, this will show up the colour of the cardstock underneath.  Then repeat the process of stamping an image with Versamark and heat setting clear embossing powder.  Then brayer or sponge another colour over the top.  This makes for a spectacular back ground.)

With this image I have next stamped the stems first inking my image with Versamark and then the colour ink and then stamping, coated with clear embossing powder and heat set.  I did this so that the stems wouldn't be 'lost' once I brayered colour on.  I also place a post-it-note so that the image was only stamped where I needed it to be.

This is the image with my brayered colour on.  I then finished the scene by drawing on some grass at the base of the flowers.  Punched some small round centres and flowers for the grass.  The Ric-Rac is new stock I have in from FTI, and I simply knotted it in a couple of places to add some interest.

Stamp sets used today were Mini Cabana from Inque Boutique, and Shapes by Design from Papertrey Ink.

Have a great day,

Pink Swirls

Happy Sunday everyone!  I hope your day has been special.

I held a workshop on Friday night, and thought I would share one of the cards we made.

It uses one of the new Inque Boutique mini stamp sets called Cabana, that are now available at The Little Online Card Shop.  I am loving that you can get these little sets for such a great price.  As well as Papertrey Inks Boxes, Bags and Tags, and Limitless Labels.

The ribbon is called celery and is from Finishing Touch Ideas.

This card comes together very simply.  The Cabana border is stamped along two edges and the stem on a seperate sheet of linen cardstock.  I stamped the flowers and cut them out, and using my rectangle spellbinders to matt the image on.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and I shall be back tomorrow with the second card from our workshop.

Happy stamping,

Supplies: Stamps - Inque Boutique, Papertrey Ink: Cardstock - White linen, SU! Pretty in Pink, Certainly Celery

Sweet Cherries

I love cherries.  It would possibly have to be one of my favourite Summer fruits - which is probably why I planted three trees - along with peaches, nectarines, apricots.......

So as I passed some in the supermarket the other day I couldn't resist them.  Though I do try to buy only Australian fruit, these beautiful, large, plump American cherries screamed at me to be bought!  And they were incredible.  So it got me thinking, "I haven't used the Tart and Tangy stamp set yet from Stampin" Up! yet".  So I did.

I have used the large FTI brads from the Wintertime collection, and thought I would add a little sparkle.

To do this you take some tweezers to hold the brad in, so that you don't burn your fingers, and heat the end with a heat gun and quickly dip in to AED Hot Set Powder.  You will see it melt immediately, but heat a little more and then I dipped again and heated and then in to the AED Superfine Glitter, and heated briefly to set.

I gave this a try with coloured brads and coloured glitter as well, and they looked fantastic.  So give this a go today and if you are feeling brave drop me an email with your card and I will post it here to share.

Have a great weekend,

Supplies :

Stamps : SU! Tart & Tangy; Papertrey Ink Mixed Messages, Boxes, Bags & Tags

Cardstock : AED Smooth White; SU! Basic Black

Accessories : FTI Medium Brads, dimensional squares; SU! DS paper

Pink Flower Garden

We had visitors come and stay with us yesterday, so I had to sneak in to do this card, but by the time I had finished it was too dark to take the photo.

A friend of mine sent me these white flowers which I stamped with dots and added some stamped cut out flowers and brads.  If you could have seen the original colours I actually started with you would be a little shocked at the end result!

I used a border from JustRites Curlz set and stamped a Papertrey Ink sentiment and flower in the centre.

I got a little carried away with my dots, stamping them not only on the flowers, but also on the Pink Passion cardstock.

Have a wonderful day,

Supplies :

Stamps : Papertrey Ink, JustRite Stampers

Cardstock : AED Smooth White, SU! Pink Passion

Ink : SU! Pink Passion, Green Galore

Accessories : FTI dimensional tape, FTI brads, CM circle cutter, X-Press It double sided tape

Best Wishes

Bright and simple today, and I can't believe that I have used green and pink again! - I shall try for something different tomorrow.

This was so easy to create.  I used my CM wavy cutter (not sure of it's official name) and paper by Alison Ellis Design.  Pieced it together on Pink Passion by Stampin' Up!© and white cardstock by AED as well.  The flowers were punched out using a carl punch I have had for many years now, and I was amazed to see it still worked as it had been boxed away between moves.

The buttons are new samples from FTI I have just put in stock, and I have tied some simple white cotton in the centre.

Spellbinders ovals have been used again and I finished it off with words from Papertrey Ink©

I love doing faux stitching, and wish now that I had thought to carry it down the centre to accentuate the curve...maybe next time.

Until tomorrow, happy stamping,