Making ANYTHING for Mr. Cobs has always been a logistical nightmare. He’s got a sixth sense when something is going on which relates to him. A cake. A meal. A gift. A plan. A surprise, etc etc. But making a card for him probably the worst because he pops in and out of the Craft Room all the time. He comes to bring me a surprise ice cream from the ice cream man. To bring me a coffee. To collect empty coffee cups. To look for the dog, or one of our cats. He’ll come bearing any packages which might have arrived for me, or even to tell me something funny which he’s read in the newspaper, heard on the radio, seen, or thought of.
I love him dropping in. Except.. when I’m trying to make him a card. I rarely make cards for him as I find it just too difficult to work on one in secret. But I managed this time, Yay!
In my panic about him creeping up behind me, (always a nightmare at anytime) I forgot to take photographs of each step, but I did remember at around the ‘quarter into it’ mark, so at least have one ‘in the middle making photo’ to share :
It’s meant to represent his shed. A total mess, and no rhyme or reason to it … but he seems to know what’s there, and I guess that’s all that matters. (Doesn’t stop me from wanting to get in there and label everything and put them all in some sort of understandable order though! lol).
Anyhoo …
The card was made using Card-io Stamps, – and the notes saying ‘Happy Birthday’ were made on the computer (I wanted to use a particular font, in the right size – so stamps wouldn’t do it … but stamps could be used), liquid pearls (for the drips of paint and the paint drips on the pots) and Anita’s 3D Clear Gloss. The stamp pads I used were by Memento and Papermania, dye ink pads.
Each of the little pinned notes were first curled up a little at the bottom, then glued to the card front. The two different types of bulldog clips were then stamped into place – in oder to ‘anchor’ the notes to the wriggly (hand drawn) string which stretches across the card – again these bulldog clips are Card-io Stamps. And the cupboard (with opening doors!) was again made using Cardio Stamps, and a bit of careful cutting with a scalpel and metal rule.
And that’s all there was to it!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. COBS! (erm …. how old will you be next year, sweetheart? [snigger])
I’ve been trying to K.I.S.S my cards over the past few weeks. No not ‘Kiss’ – as in ‘kiss on your cheek’. K.I.S.S. Right now you might be saying “What the heck is K.I.S.S.?” . . . . K.I.S.S. is short for: ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’.
I’m a bit of a lover of embellishments and falderals. I love those extra little happy touches. But the problem with these things is that it adds so much depth to a card which means having to make deeper boxes for them, and then that adds to the cost of posting them and … well I told myself that I had to try harder at making cards which were less ‘deep’. I challenged myself to make K.I.S.S. cards.
As you can see from this card – I failed slightly. I ‘had’ to add a butterfly to it. Forgive me … I needed some sparkle and joy. But this butterfly, although on the large(ish) size, it isn’t actually that deep, so it still fits inside a regular envelope! (although … I’d add a little layer of either bubble wrap or line the envelope with extra card to protect it).
This was an incredibly easy to make card. Here’s what I used:
The stamps all came from ‘Emily’s Garden’ collection from Card-io Majestix Stamps.
Card-io Stamps are such versatile stamps and you can make so much from them, for all sorts of things from Tags to large cards to Scrapbooking, for all through the year or for a particular time of year such as Christmas. (I’ll do a post just about Card-io Stamps at some point as I’d love you to ‘meet’ them.).
I chose colours of stamp pads, and got to work.
Using a 6×6″ white scored card, I masked off a section of the card which would be wide enough for the ‘rub on’ sentiment I’d chosen to fix to the card.
Although I have masking tape, I’ve never got great results when I’ve masked off on cards, and have found that it can pull off sections of card stock. So I now use Washi Tape. (hence the roll of green Washi that you can see in the photo).
Once masked off I then stamp theleaves and ferns – in the green ink pads I’ve chosen. Wiping my stamp off between changing colours, using a baby wipe. Then do the same with the flowers (only using the other colours you’ve chosen for the flowers) – again wiping the flower stamps between colour changes.
Once done remove the Washi Tape carefully – and the next bit is optional: Using a Micron pen, I butt my ruler up against the stamping and draw a thin line along it on both sides. But – again – this is optional.
Add your sentiment – either a die cut or rub on, or sticker, and Voila! You can finish the card right there. Or you can be like me and go on to add a little something extra to make it yours.
This was so SO close to being a K.I.S.S. card. I was almost there. I shall try harder next time.
Well that’s me done and dusted. 🙂
I trust that you’re going to have an excellent Wednesday. If a gremlin gets into your day then just mentally show it the door and be done with it. It’s just a day … really doesn’t matter what it’s called, you just have to make the decision that it’s going to be a good one.
Sending oodles of love and squishes to your corner from mine…
Yesterday we went through the Rules (there aren’t any) and Guidelines for getting better images when stamping. We learned the importance of a mouse mat. We stamped the same image a few times. We stamped it in different colours too and saw what a difference that made to the end result stamped image. We chatted about stamping an image in different colours all at once. And we did a bit of colouring of images once they’d been stamped, using a rainbow selection of coloured stamped pads.
Today we’re going to move on to something a bit more fearful. Sorry. I meant to say …Fearfully Easy. An impressive bit of stamp magic which, if you don’t know about these types of stamps yet, you’ll be surprised about.
A blog I follow (PaperPuff ) summed up these particular stamps beautifully when she herself tried them for the first time a few weeks ago. She called them the stamps of the Three ‘Oh’s. smiling to myself here because I knew what she was talking about and she’s right. They really are Three Oh’s. You’ll see why … Shall we begin? Seatbelts on… handbags on the floor …. Let’s go!
These are Altenew Stamps. I’ve blogged about them before, but this time I’m talking about them because I think anyone who’s having a problem with their stamping should absolutely have this set (or one of their other sets) in their ‘armoury’.
There are a couple of brands of stamps which allow me to put together a ‘story’, in stamped images, in different ways. Even if I use the exact same stamps over and over, I can actually still make one-off cards – each of them totally different from the last.
These two brands are:
Card-io Stamps– which I adore, these are available direct from Card-io themselves, (their name is a clickable link which will open in a new window) ...
and . . . the fairly recently introduced into this country: Altenew Stamps. You can now buy quite a selection of the Altenew Stamps from various places which you can find on the web. Google ‘Altenew’ and it will give you suppliers. (I use ‘My Mums Craft Shop’ and have had only great service from them – but shop around. You may find a supplier close to where you live.).
For this ‘play around’, I’m going to use the Altenew Stamps, Vintage Rose collection,shown in the last photograph.
Some of the Altenew stamps come in big sets,like the set in the photo above, but within that set is a collection of smaller ‘groups’. In this set, each group makes one rose for you, in different shapes and sizes, and there also different sets of leaves, again, different shapes and sizes.
In this photo I’ve tried to show you how I pick out each group that I’m going to use, and I pop them down in their group (in lines – top row is the large rose, middle row is the medium rose & bottom row is the small stamp) so that I don’t have to keep peeling them off the carrier sheet.
I’ve chosen to stamp a larger rose. The particular stamped image I’m going to stamp has 3 different stamps just to make one rose. In some ‘groups’ of the larger set, there may be 4 stamps to make just one image. Keep reading, it’s not as difficult or as scary as it sounds…. 🙂
One Stamp. One pale yellow colour stamp pad. The combination of which gives us . . . a frankly underwhelming image. . . . . . ‘Oh’ – number one!
You stamp the palest colour first. The paler colour of the roses tones. I’ve chosen the Yellow set of cubes from the Altenew Pads here – but if you have a selection of tones in the same colour way eg: four different shades of red/pink, or blue, or green etc etc, then you don’t have to buy the stamp pads just to use the stamps.
Then, using the second rose stamp in the group and the next colour,which is slightly darker than the first pale colour. . . . ‘Ohh!’ – number 2.
As I mentioned above – In some sizes of roses there will be three stamps, in others there will be four. (Hence the reason that the Altenew mini cubes come in sets of four).
Mmmm.. what’s happened here then?? (I hear you ask)… well, I want to show you OH! number three, but I wanted to make sure that it impresses you in such a way that you really do ‘get it’. I’ve covered up the finished Large and Medium sized roses which I’ve already completed, and this last rose, the small one, is at that ‘second stamp’ stage …That small rose has now had its 3rd colour from the stamp pads, but you can’t really see what I’m trying to show you about how these stamps will make you look like the Stamping Expert of the Year. Let’s continue and see where this goes …This time I’ve covered up all three roses. But … I’ve added some leaves on vines.
If you’re going to ‘build’ a picture with these stamps – in this case a rose, – you have to start with what’s in the foreground and then follow it up with whats in the background. But in order to do this you complete each section at a time, but then cover up that section so that you don’t stamp over it and spoil what you’ve done. As you can see in the photograph above, as I’m stamping the leaves and vines, some of the leaf/vine stamp is actually stamping onto the ‘covers’, – so, imagine the mess they would be making on the roses if I hadn’t covered up the work I’d already done. (If this sounds complicated, don’t fret. It’s honestly not … as you’ll see …..)….
Now the leaves in the photograph are fine and groovy, but … they don’t have any shadows, or veins to the leaves….. so let’s pop some in.
I’ve stamped in the veins and shadows … but I’ve purposely ‘missed’ the right places on the leaves by just ‘off center’ with the stamp. This ‘miss’ is a prolem that can happen to all of us at some time, so don’t beat yourself up or trash what you’ve worked hard on. It’s not the end of the world. Like I showed you yesterday, in part one of this guide, you can ‘paint’ with your stamp pads! So this can be put right really quite easily. Stamp the ink pad on your glass mat (or plate, saucer etc) and then dip your paint brush into a little water, but take off as much of the water as possible but leaving the bristles damp enough to ‘mix’ into the inky blob and then ‘smudge’ & paint the already (miss)stamped bit. Then simply ‘paint’ the veins of the leaves just a little ….. practise this a little on scap card. You’ll soon get the hang of it.No gaps between leaves and veins now. So … are you ready to look at the roses? . . .The third ‘Ohhh!’ . . . You can see how masking off the roses means that the vines and leaves don’t make a mess of the images you’ve already stamped.
So .. let’s stamp the other corner of the card in the same way …
I’ve stamped a group of 4 roses in the bottom left corner, so that you can see that even though two of the roses are the same, they look different because the stamped images have all been turned around and stamped differently. and the leaves are all different – even though they’re the same!Shall we make a sentiment for this card?In this photo I’ve stamped that same word in three differently places. The top image I stamped on my glass mat. The middle image I stamped on my desk top. (That’s not the light giving that effect … that’s a missing part of the image. And finally … the bottom ‘Amazing’ was stamped using the mouse mat, copy paper and then card sandwich. You can see that the mouse mat really does make a difference.If you don’t have a sentiment which says what you want to say, simply bring in other stamps, stamp them on scrap card and then use them together.
I’ve cut out the stamped sentiments then mounted them on some narrow foam tape and place them on the card. The foam tape gives a little dimension to the card.
I’ve taken three photographs of this finished card, in different lights, so that you can get a reasonable idea of the brightness of the stamped colours which the stamp pads provide.
Lights full on, so that it’s heaps brighter.Some bunnies wanted to say bye-bye!
These stamps really are easy to use, and I highly recommend them – for new stampers and stampers who have been stamping for years. They really are such a great addition to your stamps.
Phew ... well that’s where we end on our hints and tips Guide to Stamping. If there is anything I haven’t mentioned that you hoped I would, then please tell me in a comment and I’ll do my very best to help. I’m not an expert. I’m a crafter, like you, and these are things that I’ve found work for me, and after a plea asking for some help, I made this ‘Guide’ to help a fabulous lady, Mrs. P, but I’m also hoping that it might help someone else along the way too.
Thank you so much for visiting and having a coffee with me. I love your company, as you know, and the fact that you visit really does mean the world to me. So thank you for coming.
May your Tuesday be filled with love and smiles. Sending crafty hugs and oodles of l ❤ve ~ till next time …
Continuing with my easy and ‘low-cost to make and on postage costs’ Christmas Cards, – made using Card-io Stamps, stamp ink pads and a bit of imagination. Today we’re feeding the birds their Christmas Dinner.
All the photographs can be enlarged by clicking on them – but don’t forget to click ‘back’ to come back to this page to carry on reading!
I love this card as it has some humour built into it somehow. It makes me smile when I look at it.
To make: I began stamping the garland towards the top of the card, using a twiggy stamp, and a berry stamp – to which I added a little red by colouring over the berries with a fine tipped red Staedtler pen.
Then I ripped a sheet of cheap copy paper in a wiggly but straight(ish) line and angled it on top of the card in the place where I wanted a snow-covered hillside in the background to be. Using three colours of Versa Color ink pads I ‘made’ the sunset by blending first the lightest yellow colour, using a cheap cosmetic sponge – over the edge of the torn paper. I then added a soft shade of yellowy orange to the centre – blending it outwards so that the colour began to graduate. Finally I added a tiny touch of a deep warm shade of orange, again blending outwards so that there were no ‘edges’ to the three colours, but a warm glow. Voila! A sunset.
To make the blue sky over to the left hand side of the card, I did the exact same thing as making the sunset – simply blending (this time) two colours of blue.
Next came the sentiment closely followed by stamping the bird houses/feeders. I added the trees in the background, and birds on the bird boxes, individually.
I ‘framed’ the whole scene by hand drawing a pair of wiggly, barbed, lines around the edge of the card.
Then came the fun stuff … the Snow!
I took this photo at an ‘odd’ angle so that I could capture the snow to show you where it was. I used Pinflair glue, and added Pinflair Snow Dust to make the snow on the hillside, and on the tops of the bird houses/feeders; around the bottom of the post on the one bird house/feeder and along the ledges.
I also added more ‘snow’ by using a Graph It marker in white. Using it as ‘snow falling from the sky’ by dotting carefully and gently over the scene, and also adding little strokes to the garland so that it looked like snow had collected on some of the twigs.
And that, as they say, is all there is to it!
I really enjoyed the making of this card, it came together so quickly and was such fun. (I was watching Judge Judy at the time – so I’m astounded it turned out well at all. Judge Judy is SO acerbic and caustic, she has me hooting with laughter. I’m quite sure that I’d get it in the neck from her for doing that – so please don’t anyone tell her or she’ll ground me for a week! LOL)
Whilst I’ve got your attention: those of you who were waiting for my ‘Craft Product I Recommend’ blog post about Card-io Stamps – it is in the pipeline, and there is a reason that it’s not on the blog here yet, which you’ll find out about when I actually post it.
Thank you so much for visiting and staying with me for a while. I SO enjoy your company. I always feel like you’ve come and joined me at my kitchen table, and shared a coffee with me while we’ve had a good ol’ chat and a few giggles about crafting. Perfick! (lovers of Pop Larkin; author H.E. Bates; Darling Buds of May, will ‘get’ that word: → but for those who haven’t got the foggiest notion of what I’m talking about – replace ‘perfick’ with ‘perfect’). 😀
Have a truly magnificent Monday! In fact, I hope it’s PERFICK. ♥ love ♥ ~
I rarely make Christmas cards. You can buy a box of Christmas cards so cheaply that it kind of feels like it’s a bit wasteful to spend lots of money (not to mention time) to make them myself. We crafters know exactly how much it actually costs for our supplies – and believe me it’s not cheap!
But this year I thought that I could justify making them as I had a plethora of card stock, and I if I used my Card-io stamps then I could make them really cheaply, with very little in the way of adornments or embellishments.(Watch out for more about Cardio stamps soon. I’m going to do a write-up in my ‘Craft Products I recommend’ category on my blog here – so look out for that one.) Over the next few days I’ll post a card a day of a selection of the Card-io cards which I’ve made for friends and neighbours this year.
Today is the turn of the Christmas Wreath Card.
Pretty, isn’t it! And yet it’s made SO simply that you probably wouldn’t believe it. Made using just four tiny little clear stamps. The only embellishments on this card are some pale pink flat back pearls (used as little berries on the wreath), and a tie of a tiny bit of ribbon for the bow on the top of the wreath – oh, and a little sprinkle of some glitter.
I know that in the photograph the wreath looks as if it has quite some depth – but it’s actually totally flat, apart from the pale pink pearls. The clever bit is in the stamping. If you use a second and sometimes third generation of stamping then you’ll ‘build in’ some depth. If you look around the edge of the card itself, you’ll see what I mean by ‘second generation’.
second generation stamping
You can see a dark stamped image … but between the darker images, you’ll see a second, paler image. Well – that’s second generation stamping. I stamped the image once, then without inking up the stamp again, I stamped the image again – this time pressing just a little harder on the stamp to ensure that the image printed out. This is what gives a depth to a stamped image. It looks like something is there, in the background.
Because the wreath is a little more heavily stamped, you don’t see the second generation stamping too easily – but it’s there. It kind of tricks your brain into thinking that what you’re seeing is actually a shadow of the darker stamped image, and so makes the darker images look as if they’re dimensional and stand out proud of the card. Hence the deception of depth.
Crafty stuff I used to make this card:
White 6×6 ready scored card stock.
An assortment (4) of small individual Card-io stamps
Whisper Archival Ink Pads (a pinky peachy raspberry colour and a dull brown)
Memento Ink Pad (in a warm brown)
Ranger Archival Ink Pad (black)
Pinflair Glue
Translucent Glitter Dust
Anita’s flat back pearls from their Gemstone Wheel.
Short length of tartan/plaid ribbon.
This was a really quick to make card and it didn’t need any die cutting, measuring, cutting (other than the ribbon) or any great deal of ‘working it out’. I knew I wanted to make a wreath. I knew I wanted it to look festive but in colours other than red and green (so over-used at Christmas!) – and I wanted the edges of the card to be coloured to tone with the wreath.
I had such a fun time making this … but then … I was using Card-io stamps, and I always have a fun craft time with them. ButI’ll do you a write-up about them and then you can make your own decision on whether to buy some for yourself!
Wishing you a blessed and trouble-free Tuesday, love from ~
The Art of Cobwebs 