simon says stamp - faberge egg

Did someone say Faberge Egg? As in, gold and jewels and decadence. Well son of a gun, one of the products in the new Lucky to Know You release at Simon Says Stamp is actually a Faberge Egg die. And lucky me, it came to live at my house. Thanks, Simon.

I could not not go the gold and jewel route. But talk about easy. I'm sure you too have a gazillion backgrounds in your stash that you have created with paints or inks or alcohol inks. Maybe you even have PP that is marbled or galaxy-ish. If so, this is under-five-minute card. Ready?

 SSS Faberge Egg die

I die cut the intricate egg from gold CS, the solid egg from a background I recently created trying out spin art with my new salad spinner! (Watch for a tutorial on the 12th ;) Glued them together and adhered them to a shimmery, linen cardbase and voila!

For my second card, I die cut the solid egg from craft foam and used it as a stamp. Randomly stamped the cardbase with Squeezed Lemonade, Worn Lipstick and Abandoned Coral Distress Oxides and then added a vellum solid egg with a stacked white intricate egg and voila!

SSS Faberge Egg die
Distress Oxides
craft foam, vellum 

I have one more card for you, this was more of a wing-it-as-you-go-along card. I wanted to make a tulle shaker. Hmm. This die seemed perfect for it. Hmm. For some reason I decided to make a little (4" x 4 3/4") double fold card, so I winged it and this happened.

SSS Faberge Egg die 

tulle, PP, sequins

I trimmed a 4 3/4"piece of textured white CS from a 12x12 sheet. Scored it at 4" and 8". I created the tulle shaker, adhered it with score tape and backed the front with yellow CS. Backed the orange (leaving in some pieces of the die cut to make it more readable through the tulle) intricate egg with yellow polka dot PP and if you open that flap you have the entire middle panel to write your message.

Check out all the makes with the products from the release in the gallery here. And be sure to check out the blog hops this weekend to see all the new products in action.

STAMPlorations inspiration #257

Hello peeps! And hello March! It's time for another Tuesday inspiration from the STAMPlorations inspiration team!

This month I'm creating cards all inspired by one card I saw last month that just took my breath away. Did you see this beauty by TaeEun?  I knew I'd have to give her design a try and today's card is a total CASE, just using STAMPlortions products.

Crazy Double Running Stitch Rectangles die

Buttercups and Butterflies stamp and die

Hello die

Distress inks - Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet, Mermaid Lagoon

Zig clean color real brushes (on Bristol smooth watercolor paper)

What I loved about TaeEun's design was the super light inked BG, the turquoise color on the bloom and the start white frame. Check.

I used an exacto knife to trim away the inside of my rectangle die cut to make a frame. And I added some gold splatters to my BG and gold embossing to my die cut sentiment. I must admit - I love this card!!!! Thanks for the inspiration, girl.

You could win yourself a $10 GC to the store by leaving a comment on this month's inspiration posts! Check out today's post over at STAMPlorations. And if you're placing an order at the store, I'd really appreciate it if you used my STAMPGIRLMARIA discount code for an additional 20% off your order - at no extra cost to you, just with perks for me ;)

For a completely different way of using this stamp set, check out this card.

Thanks for stopping over today. Have a great week.

I'm hooking up over at:
SSS Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes
Die Cut Divas - Anything Goes
Cut it Up - Favorite Color (has pretty much always been magenta - I love how the pink and blue together also create a lovely purple)
Happy Little Stampers Watercolor - March

spotlight on using up scraps

Howdy peeps! I just realized that I never shared these projects here on my blog!

Rainbows. Using up scraps. Getting a threefer out of a twofer.

If you'd like to learn more, check out my Spotlight tutorial over at STAMPlorations.

CAS cards challenge march

Hello there! After our little break we're back at it over at STAMPlorations with our challenges. 

It's time for a new CAS Cards challenge and here's what I made. First, the inspiration.

As always it's anything goes. The optional color twist this month is light blue and my mind immediately went to baby boys.

STAMPlorations Tweet Love stamp
STAMPlorations Heaven Sent stamp

patterned paper

CAS card tip: Instead of just stamping an image or stamping and coloring an image, do some paper piecing. And take it up a notch by adding some color to the paper pieced image like I did here on the ear and tail.

Self explanatory me thinks. Stamp, stamp on PP, fussy cut, adhere, done. For more inspiration with this little ellie check out this card.

I'm looking forward to your CAS card creations this month! Your project might be chosen as the winner of a GC to the shop. Check out how the DT was inspired by this month's photo here.

And don't forget about my STAMPlorations discount code STAMPGIRLMARIA for 20% off should you find yourself shopping ;)  Thanks for stopping over. See you in the gallery.

guest designing at time out #156

Posting today as a guest designer to join the talented ladies over at Time Out for this fortnight's challenge. It's a photo challenge. I always love the photos Sandie picks. Don't you just want to eat these yummy colors?

I just love how that fresh yellow pops off the aqua, especially with those touches of white. (BTW, you can see a larger version of the photo over at Time Out.)

Well, since the challenge is being sponsored by Altenew, I headed to my stash and had a looksee. I also headed to my stash of backgrounds looking for something nice and aqua and amazingly enough I found what I needed!

Altenew Persian Motifs stamp and die

Altenew German Label Love stamp

In the inspiration photo, that painted yellow piece really popped out at me. I knew I wanted to place a yellow die cut "something" on an aqua background. Well I had my background, a piece made by cleaning up some metallic gelato-y messes awhile back. Perusing my Altenew dies, I chose Persian Motifs, cut it from lemon yellow and heat embossed the outline in white on it.

Then in a nod to the pile of books in the photo I inked up my Label Love sentiment with four blocks of color. I tore the edges of the background and adhered it. Stitched my sentiment down and adhered the yellow motif with foam adhesive. A few shiny sequins finished my card. Wish you could see the metallic sheen of the aqua BG, it really makes the card.

I'm looking foward to seeing your entries in the gallery, and how you choose to interpret the photo.

Many thanks to Sandie and the design team for having me. It's such fun to be part of the inspiration post for this month's photo challenge. I'll be back with a second make later...

I'm joining the Anything Goes fun at SSS Wednesday Challenge as well as the Hearts and Flowers Challenge over at Die Cut Divas.

STAMPlorations inspiration #256

Time for another Tuesday inspiration from the STAMPlorations inspiration team!

This month I've been creating cards using a design I love but rarely remember to use. It's great for one layer cards - the split design with a sentiment in the middle area.

Well today's card was a leftover from last week's which was a combo of two ideas. Use a stencil to create the images and make your own stencil using a cover plate die! And when you've used the fussy cut portion of the die cut as a stencil and inked through it, you just can't throw that beauty away!

Bloomtangled Cover Plate #1 die

Skinny Sentiments die

Distress inks - Blueprint Sketch, Mermaid Lagoon, Old Paper, Iced Spruce

That white portion of the die cut along the bottom was covered by my mask when I inked last week's card. I thought about inking it up for today's but then decided I liked that added unexpected touch of white.

You could win yourself a $10 GC to the store by leaving a comment on this month's inspiration posts! Check out today's post here. And as always, I'd appreciate it if you used my STAMPGIRLMARIA discount code for an additional 20% off your order from the store - at no extra cost to you, just perks for me ;)

For more inspiration using only a portion of this cover plate die, check out this card.

Thanks for stopping over today. Have a great week.

I'm hooking up at Die Cut Divas where it's about Hearts and Flowers this month and at SSS Wednesday where it's about Add a Sentiment.

STAMPlorations digital stamps four more ways

I'm over on the STAMPlorations blog today with four digital stamp projects. You could win a $15 GC to the store for comments left here and there. Just sayin...

So. I'm no pro with digital stamps. I love getting inky with actual stamps. And I'm a pro at ink smudges. But there are some benefits to digi stamps - no smudges, perfect coverage without a MISTI, image resizing, even layering images (though I've yet to give that a try). And no shipping!

I use Microsoft Word and my Canon ink jet printer. I recommend this post for a great intro to digi stamps. It's where I figured out how to print them using Word.

I've got four projects to share today. One image enlarged. One shrunk. One left as is. And one heat embossed. Let's get started.

First up, I wanted a really large image. I inserted the PNG file for the image (it's the rectangular frame with roses along its left edge) into a Word document. Then I clicked on the image and stretched it to enlarge it. It's got nice thick lines so this worked great. I trimmed the printed image down to the card front size I wanted and made a shaker card.

Blossom Frames digi stamp

Succulently die

Copic markers

Klartext Kartengruss stamp

sequins

Something about those thick black lines... I decided to go all dramatic on this one. Chose red tones and Copic colored only a piece I die cut from the printed panel and set it back behind the shaker. Added a heat embossed German sentiment since this will be a birthday card for DS's girlfriend.

For my second card I shrunk a digi stamp so it could be just an accent piece on my card.

Blossom Frames digi stamp

Manila Tag die

5 Love Words die

Altenew ink

Sweetly stamp

PP, washi, sequins

You can imagine my joy when I stumbled upon this PP in my stash. A perfect complement to the digi image. Thinking anniversary or wedding, I chose silver glitter for the die cut sentiment and the strip of washi. Sequins added more sparkle.

To eliminate some of the empty white space I masked and stamped some yellow blooms with the Sweetly stamp. On the cardbase and within the digi frame. BTW, I flipped the die and made a second cut to turn the manila tag into a rectangle!

So after enlarging and shrinking images on the previous cards, my next card uses an image just as it is (A2 size), I merely trimmed away the black lines of the frame.

Fluttery Garden digi stamp

Bloomful stamp

Copic markers

No need to color the entire image. I had fun coloring just the butterflies. Have you ever been to a garden where those gorgeous blue butterflies flutter about? They were my inspiration.

I added interest by cutting out parts of their wings with an exacto knife and backing the "holes" with yellow cardstock. Added white gel pen dots to the wings and some color to the background with dots of various yellow Copic markers.

My final card was the result of an aha moment I had when I was printing digi stamps on PP (for my March post!), and using cellophane tape to hold my PP in place on copy paper. I noticed the toner ink remained wet where it printed on the tape...Maybe that would also be the case on vellum, I thought. And it was! Which means if you're quick you can heat emboss a digi stamp printed onto vellum! 

Cupful of Blooms digi stamp

Birthday Bash stamp

PP, embossing powder, vellum

It may not be as perfect as with normal heat embossing, but I think it's pretty amazing! And quick. I chose to back it with floral PP and adhere the vellum with just a line of messy stitching up top.

That's it for today. Don't forget to leave a comment here.  And here too, for another chance to win.

I'm playing over at:

SSS Wednesday Challenge - Add a sentiment (card #3)

Die Cut Divas - Hearts or Flowers (card #1)

Creative with Stamps - Red (card #1)