Sleigh Ride and Festive Fireplace

I'm so sad that these products are being retired - they've been a wonderful and versatile addition to my stash this Christmas!  Now that I know they won't be around much longer, I'm using them mor than ever!

Centre panel card, sponged sky with silver glitter stars from the Confetti Stars Border punch

If you don't have these sets yet, and would like them, it might be a good idea to buy them as soon as you can in case stock runs out.  Just click on the image of the product at the bottom of this post  - it'll link you to my shop.

The greeting is from the To You & Yours Too set which is also retiring.

If you'd like more information about retiring products or if there's anything else you'd like to ask me - please contact me.

'Til next time
Stephanie

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Snowmum Shaker Card

The glitter in the shaker falls into interesting snow falls

I came over all adventurous yesterday and made my first shaker card!  I've been thinking of improvements ever since but, meanwhile - here it is!

I have decided to enter it into this week's Global Design Project #GDP012 since Brian King's lovely card inspired me to use the Snow Place stamp set.

A little bit of masking and stamping with the Snow Place stamp set

 I've called it my Snowmum card because of the comforting arm/stick around the little snowman.  My niece had been visiting with her new baby and all the cuteness must have affected me!

The inside of the card

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Crazy Crafters Blog Hop November 2015 - My Most Used Stamp Set

 

Welcome to the Crazy Crafters Blog Hop for November. This month we are showcasing our most used stamp set! We hope you like our choices and find great inspiration from the projects.

You may just be starting the blog hop here at my blog - Stephanie Fischer, The Crafty Thinker - or you may have come from the person before me in the list. If you get off track at any time, the full lineup below will help you to move along from blog to blog so that you see all of the projects.

My most used stamp set would have to be Lovely As A Tree!  It was my first stamp set purchase and remains one of my all-time favourites!  It really gets a work-out because it's just so versatile - it's equally suitable for Christmas cards, birthday cards (masculine or feminine), sympathy cards ... pretty much everything really and it also lends itself very well to many different techniques and so it can look very different, depending on the techniques and/or colours you use.

Lovely as a tree painted with embossing powders. Greeting from Six Sayings

I created these cards by "painting" with embossing powders - and a lot of fun it was too!  First I stamped the image with Versamark and then I very carefully sprinkled small amounts of three different embossing powders roughly where I thought I'd like them.  I tipped the card down to remove the excess powder and so the tops of the trees remained very white and little bit of "snow" fell onto the ground too. Then I tapped off any excess and used the heat tool. 

For a great tutorial on the technique see Sandi McIver's PDF here.

In this one, I used black, gold and white on Sahara Sand cardstock which I layered with Elegant Eggplant and Gold Foil cardstock.

I wanted the tree trunks and bases of the trees to be darker and the tops of the trees to be lighter and so I concentrated my embossing powders accordingly.


For this card, I used black, silver and white embossing powders on smoky slate cardstock (layered with black, Basic Grey and Silver Foil cardstock). 
  

Another version in gold

 

One of the joys (and sometimes frustrations!) of this technique is that it looks different every time!  Here are a couple of other cards to show you what I mean.

I hope you've enjoyed these cards and I welcome your comments. 

Thanks for taking part in our blog hop. Remember that currently you are at my blog - Stephanie Fischer - so check the blog hop line up list to see who is next in the list and click on their name as you don't want to miss out on seeing any of the blogs and the amazing inspiration they contain.

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Christmas card - To You & Yours Too

Time is not my friend at the moment so I was very excited to complete a card to enter into the latest Global Design Project challenge!  This is GDP010 - click the image for the link to join in or see all the lovely entries.

And this is my card using the To You &Yours Too stamp set, some masking and sponging.

My entry for #GDP010: To You & Yours Too, Delicate Ornaments Thinlits, Masking & Sponging

To go with the moonlight theme, I stamped the black cardstock with versamark using the little stars from the stamp set and heat embossed with Heat & Stick before sprinkling with Dazzling Diamonds glitter.

I masked the moon with a circle of scrap paper (I made it sticky but removable with some 2-Way glue) before sponging with Soft Sky, Pool Party, Pacific Point, Night of Navy and a tiny touch of black.  Then I removed the mask and stamped the main image from the stamp set with Archival black ink.  I then cut out the image with one of the Delicate Ornament Thinlits and sponged the edge with a little black.

The ornament top and hook are cut from Silver Foil with dies from the same set.

I stamped the banner from the Project Life Hello December 2015 stamp set and coloured between the lines with my Pool Party Stampin' write marker (although it's a bit hard to see in the photo).  I manipulated the photopolymer greeting from the Happy Scenes stamp set so that it followed the shape of the banner and stamped with Pacific Point ink.  Then I fussy cut the banner.

The squares are Pacific Point cardstock layered onto Pool Party. The main card is also Pool Party.

I had so much fun with this that I went on to make several more cards using the same stamp set and similar technique: some sunsets and some moonlight.  I added the sled & reindeer image from Cozy Christmas and to some of them I added the trees from the Wonderland stamp set.

Crushed Curry, Tangelo Twist, Cajun Craze, Bermuda Bay, Night of Navy, Black

Soft Sky, Pool Party, Night of Navy, Black.  Main image in Basic Grey

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Christmas cards with heat embossing & bleaching

I thought I'd quickly share what we'll be doing in the next Tuesday class.  We'll be heat embossing and discussing different effects that can be achieved using heat embossing. 

Then we'll be painting our embossed images with bleach.  We'll then use inks to colour some of the images.

This is the first card that we'll be making together:

Cozy Christmas - heat embossed then bleached

We'll create the top layer (that hopefully brings snowflakes to mind) with the Emboss Resist technique - clear embossing on Whisper White and sponging with Smoky Slate.

We'll die cut the ornament shape from the centre of the card (keeping the ornament die cut for another project!).

The image from Cosy Christmas is heat embossed with black onto Marina Mist cardstock. 

Using a small soft brush, household bleach is applied to the trees, roof, windows and chimney smoke.  Here I used 4 applications of bleach, drying with a heat tool between applications to check on the level of bleaching achieved.  I heated from the back of the paper to preserve the embossing.

I also applied bleach to the foreground to look like snow.  I painted it onto the card in a streaky sort of way to create interest and look more "scenic" and I also applied less bleach closer to the cottage to create some depth.

The corners of the card and the spotty layer were punched using the Curvy Corner Trio Punch.

I centred the ornament cut out over my scene, trimmed off any stray edges and then layered it onto the Basic Grey card.  

I finished it off with a few Rhinestone Jewels and a little bit of white ribbon from my stash.

I have entered this into the November link up at Just Keep On Creating - anything goes and it's a fun way to share creativity.  Click on the image to have a look.

Cozy Christmas again but without the emboss resist layer

 

I also made a slightly simpler version without the emboss resist technique - just in case time is tight!  You can see that I used more bleach in this one.

Santa's Gifts, bleached then coloured

Close up of the tree

If time allows we'll also make something like this card which will allow us to colour in our image after we've bleached it. 

The tree image is from the Santa's Gifts set and I coloured it using Stampin' Write Markers in Pear Pizzazz, Garden Green, Daffodil Delight, Real Red, Chocolate Chip, Hello Honey and Cherry Cobbler. 

To create the stars, I punch a little bit of left over Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Card with the Confetti Stars Border Punch and glued on some of the resulting little stars with the Fine-Tip Glue Pen.

The emboss resist background is a bit bright but I wanted to offset the rather muted tones in the ornament (I used the same piece of Marina Mist cardstock  for both cards to save time!).  The colours in the background are Daffodil Delight and Watermelon Wonder.  The bow is Calypso Coral Seam Binding Ribbon and the ornament is "hanging" from a little piece of silver Cording Trim.

I also made this, slightly more advanced, card using heat embossing and bleach.  The images are from Happy Scenes, Wonderland and White Christmas.  The snow is stamped with bleach using  one of the little stamps from Sheltering Tree.  To create the trees in the background, I used the same stamp twice but the second time, I masked out one of the trees.

Scene creating using heat embossing & bleach: Wonderland, Happy Scenes, White Christmas

I'll be back soon to show you some cards I've made by "painting" with embossing powder.

Thanks for visiting.

Stephanie

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog