Impression Obsession DT Challenge: Bunny Love

The Impression Obsession team's challenge today is to create a project featuring adorable bunnies! I love bunnies... Evernote says that I have 148 bunny things (dies, stamps and stencils) - I'm not surprised. If this project looks a little bit familiar, you're probably remembering this card I shared a couple of weeks ago! I made them at the same time.

This was another background made while I was testing some stencil brushes and those stencils are HERE and HERE.

I made a quick tag from a gel print - this is one of the cardstock pieces I've used several times to clean off my plate. The sentiment is from this Easter Basket clear set, and that layered tag set is HERE.

Bunny Poses

Here are those adorable bunny dies again - they're just so fun!

Other dies I used: 

Small Grass Border

Grass Border

Small Grass Border (beach)

Tied Line

Be sure to check out the other designers' blogs for inspiration, and remember you can enter these challenges too, using your Impression Obsession stamps! See the I.O. blog for all the details - you might even win a $25 gift certificate!! We'd love to have you join us.

Splitcoast Tutorial: Layered Vintage Card

This week's tutorial over on Splitcoast is a great stepped-out process for creating a Layered Vintage Card! I pulled out a few stamps from my sewing collection to use, and I'll link them below. 

The background was stamped and embossed with clear powder, and then inked with several new Dyestress ink colors - it's sort of an odd combination but I love the new Bumble Bee yellow ink, and I wanted that to shine through. I shared a review of these inks HERE a few months ago, and the 12 new colors are available now! There are layers of inking and spritzing with water, some stenciling, spritzing through a stencil, and stamping as well.

I used the new Cut-Align ruler in a couple of different ways on my card, and I love this - see that perfect 1/16" border around the button card and the ruler panel? Cut-Align. I did find that I had a little hard time seeing the 1/16" line because my light was to the opposite side of the ruler and the slot was casting a shadow onto the side I needed to see - but a quick adjustment of my light fixed that problem for me. I lined up the grid side of the ruler with my card edge to make sure my horizontal panel was straight, too.

The Cut-Align rulers come in this set of 2 - each has a slot for cutting down the center, and a wide array of measuring and guide lines for precision cutting and trimming. If you're interested in trying the ruler out (or any other products from My Sweet Petunia!), you can use code SCSCUT19 for a 15% discount!

The crochet border at the bottom was stamped and cut from tissue paper - I just tucked it along a strip of double sided tape on the back of the ruler piece. (Almost forgot - I used the centering ruler to get that cut down to card width.)

The stamps I used are all from my line at Impression Obsession - this was a fun collection to design!

E13088 Button Card

H13094 Vintage Scissor Snowflake

D13095 Vintage Scissors

E13100 Sewing Ruler

C13108 Sew Loved

E13097 Crochet Border 2

Hope you're having a great week!

Heat foiling with cutting dies

I've had some fun this weekend exploring what all the Spellbinders Glimmer Foil Machine can do! For this project I've used a regular cutting die with the system - it transferred a perfect outline image to my watercolor paper, and the foil resists the watercolor. So fun!

Before I get going, TLady, you're my winner - I have your address and I'll send that foil out to you this week! Yay!

I  bought this gorgeous large die during the last big Spellbinders sale, and it was a perfect one for this project. Rookie tips - cut the foil too big, and cut the card too big - since there's always a possibility of shifting on the plates, give yourself a little room for error. If you get a little extra foil on your project, you can remove it with a sand eraser! Since the foiled lines are impressed into the card, they won't be affected. 

...and you can always trim the panel down! My foiling ended up a little crooked, so I used my new Cut-Align ruler to even out the edges - I like using it with the grid mat on my desk to keep everything square.

I used several layers of watercolor to color in the image, and then added a few more little details and shadows with colored pencil.

I die cut a little heart out of 3M foam tape, and just pressed gold foil onto the exposed adhesive - it transferred so easily! No burnishing needed at all - I just pressed with my fingers. (Tip: shiny side up!) I was so happy to know that this would work - it really expands the possibilities of this system and this foil! I'll have to do some more experimenting with different adhesives to see what works the best.

I finished it all off with some gold watercolor splatters - it's so cheery and shimmery! The sentiment I used is from my coffee collection, and it's HERE.

Have a wonderful week!

Spellbinders April 2019 Glimmer Foil Kit

Something new for me this month - I've finally jumped on the foiling bandwagon! If you've followed me for long, you know that it takes me forever to warm up to a trend and foiling has been one of those for me... I actually purchased a laminator 2 years ago, and never really had the courage to use it. But.............. Spellbinders approached me and asked if I'd be interested in trying out their Glimmer Hot Foil system, and I thought - why not? So here I am, and I'll be sharing a project monthly using products from their club kits! 

This turns out to be an amazing month to join, because this month's kit is an alphabet set - this is a solid serif font, and the letters are a great size, just about 3/4" high. 

GLIMMER HOT FOIL KIT OF THE MONTH CLUB

I paired the alphas up with a couple of brand new stencils from A Colorful Life Designs - I did the foil impressions first on hot press watercolor paper, and the foil resisted my stenciling and watercoloring perfectly. When the paper was dry, I added sharper details with colored pencils.

The foils used with the Glimmer system are heat reactive, and they're designed to be used with the shaped metal plates or metal dies - I'll share a sample done with regular cutting dies on Monday. The Glimmer foils are different from the foils that transfer to toner and unfortunately they won't work in laminators or with toner sheets or other products .. but I did discover that they will stick to adhesive, which opens up possibilities for use with die cuts and other tape adhesives. Lots of playing yet to do! 

The foil I used on these cards is the Matte Silver - I love the subtle shimmer. 

Annnnd if you've stuck with me this far, I have a roll of foil to give away! It's the Cobalt Blue foil, and it will go to a lucky commenter! I'll draw a winner Sunday night and announce my winner Monday morning. Please be sure your comment includes or links to your email address so I have a way to contact you. Thanks!

What about you? Do you foil all the things?

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Splitcoast Tutorial: 3D Frame Display

This week's tutorial over on Splitcoast is a 3D Frame Display - be sure to check the gallery for lots of different ideas!

My mind went in  couple of different directions with this project, so I have 2 samples to share. I had seen the Paper Smooches challenge yesterday, so I made one frame with the die cut opening over to the side to match the April sketch. The cupcake die set I used can be found HERE, and the sentiment is from a discontinued Hero Arts set.

The card front is 2" wider than the base, and scored 1/2" in from each side to create a tab that folds around to the back. The extra inch creates a curve on the front, and it stands by itself. Fun design! I love the negative cut design on this one. These will need to be hand-delivered or mailed in a box, just so you know.

For my second card I pulled out the May 2018 Hero Arts kit - these monthly kits are packed fulllll of stamps and dies, and they're such a great value. I love that you can purchase any kit without subscribing - there have been a couple of times I couldn't help myself! I actually have an alarm set to check the kit each month on the release day (first Monday of the month), just in case. You can find the newest My Monthly Hero kit HERE.

The tree frame die is from the kit. I had the gel printed background in my file - the clouds are die cuts from Impression Obsession that I laid onto the press after covering it with paint. The figures inside are die cut, and the kite is stamped. The butterfly is another IO die, and the banner die is HERE.

These are fun and easy cards to make, and they can be made in any size - just determine your base size, and make the top piece 2" wider! 

Hope your week is going well!

Impression Obsession - Old is New

With such a huge collection of wonderful stamps from so many artists, sometimes the older stamps in the Impression Obsession catalog find their way out of the spotlight. We don't want them to be forgotten, so from now on you'll be seeing our team feature them regularly. We hope you're inspired!

Cowboy Silhouette
Sure Miss You

I've had this card in my head for a little while... yesterday was my Dad's birthday, so I made it in his memory. I cried a little too.

I used some ColorBox Dyestress inks to blend that background, masking the sun off with a mask from  A Colorful Life Designs. I lightly misted some water over the background and lifted out a few spots, then highlighted them with a white colored pencil. I used the colored pencil to add a few highlights to the cowboy, horse, and ground as well.The ground is colored in with Copic markers, and the cowboy image was stamped with Versafine Clair ink.

I received the new CutAlign tool from My Sweet Petunia to review - so far my favorite feature is the grid, that helps me get my sentiment strips lined up nice and straight on my card! 

Be sure to check out the other designers' blogs for inspiration - see the I.O. blog for all the details!