I Have A Mint Crush

I've been busy busy busy again, so here's TWO cards I managed to make a few days ago.

I'm sad about a number of stamps that are retiring, and this Handcarved background stamp is one of them. I love it's informal chevron-ish look. I sponged the colours on with daubers and didn't worry about being too neat - but also didn't want to be overly messy and get some horribly muddied colours. I teamed this background with some more retiring products, the Label Love set and coordinating Artisan Label punch.

For the next card I decided to stick with the same colour scheme but go for a completely different look. I don't have a lot of Thank You cards in my stash, so decided to make one with the Because You Care set. If you haven't noticed it, it's a hostess set in the Occasions Catalogue and won't be available after June 2. I let a piece of Mint Macaron cardstock take centre stage on this card, it's definitely my favourite of the new In Colors, so expect to see a lot of it! Some of the items used in these cards, like that yummy Mint Macaron cardstock, can't be ordered until June 2nd, but don't forget June 2nd is a wonderful day when you can order from the current catalogue, the Occasions catalogue and the new 2015-2016 catalogue! That said, any retiring items you like you really shouldn't wait to order as they are only available while stocks last.

And the colour combination for both cards:

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Punch Art Letters

A few weeks ago I attended Stampin' Up!'s Partytime event in Sydney. Attendee's are encouraged to make a name badge, which I of course left to do like the day before. Not having any current alphabet stamps, or the alphabet thinlets, and not wanting to be as straight forward as write or print my name... I really was scratching my head about how I could make a creative name badge. Then it suddenly occured to me that I have a bit of a rep for my use of punches, so how about making my name by using punches. I got a number of comments about my badge so thought it would be a good idea to show how I made my letters.

My approach was pretty boring in a way - I started with the letter C because it's the first letter in my name...

From past experience I knew I needed to start from the inside and work out. This isn't always necessary but it often makes things much easier.

So I started with the 1 1/4" scallop circle on the edge of a piece of Wisteria Wonder.

I then lined up the 1 3/4" scallop circle around this...

...and punched it out. Looks like a mouth wanting to eat the frosting off a cupcake, hehehehe.

For the A I started by lining up the postage stamp punch from the Little Lables punch pack. The bottom notches of the punch edge are below the edge, but of course this really wouldn't have mattered since I wasn't using the square... might make it a little easier to ensure it's straight though.

Next I lined up the Tree punch around the stamp shape...

...and punched it out.

The R was probably the trickiest of the lot, I realised pretty quickly that I'd have to be piecing together multiple pieces. For the round part at the top of the R, I trimmed a piece of cardstock to a little under 1.9cm and put it into the 3/4" circle from the bottom of the punch so instead of a circle it will just be rounding one end. When doing this I find it easier to fit the cardstock in if it is just a little smaller than the width of the punch shape you are putting the cardstock into.

The diagonal leg of the R was a piece from the Chevron border punch, for the straight back I just trimmed a strip of cardstock to match the width of the chevron. I then fiddled around with the pieces till I figured out how big I wanted the round part and trimmed the pieces to size.

The O was an easy one. Could've gone for a smaller circle for the middle but liked the slightly different look of having the Small Oval on the inside and punching the 1 1/4" circle around it.

When re-doing my letters to take these photos I mistakenly used the 1 3/8" circle, oops!

Making an interesting L was probably the hardest letter of all. After a lot of thinking and a few failed attempts, I settled on punching the Artisan Label to create the inside shape of the L, then off-setting the Curly Label punch...

...and punching it out. I really loved the shape this gave to the ends of the L.

As you can see I tilted the Curly Label punch quite a bit to get the final shape.

Well I hope that has given you some ideas if you ever find yourself stumped with lettering! Also note that I some of these punches are the old "whale" design, any you buy from Stampin' Up! now will not look like this!

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Moonlight Balloons

Hello again! And sorry there's been a bit of a break once again - the school holidays got away with me once again. Even though school has been back for over a week it's still taking me a bit to get back into the swing of things. Here's a quick card, before my next post which will have a tutorial for something I did a few weeks ago.

A little trick I often use to help make things more defined is to go around the edge of them with a marker. Often it will be in the matching colour of the cardstock I am going around, but on this occasion I used the Blackberry Bliss marker to really make the balloons stand out.

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog