SOS #136 - Cabin Fever

It's Tuesday, and time for a new Shopping Our Stash challenge. This week's theme is Cabin Fever, and we'd like you to use an Outdoors-y theme. Really anything outdoors-y will work: trees, ice skating, a beach - LOTS of ideas.

For my card I busted out a new-to-me Simon Says Stamp die and I made this:

I die-cut the tree out of a white panel, took out the tree, and colored it with Copics. I then stuck the negative tree piece to a green panel, and put the colored tree back in place. Perfect alignment!

I was following the current CAS(E) This Sketch! sketch:

so for the sentiment, I used a small scrap of the dotted paper I used on this card and stamped the sentiment on it. I like the added detail it gives to the card. :) Oh, and I've listed some Memento markers below because the 'k' on my stamp has a boo-boo and won't stamp in one spot, so I colored it with a brown marker.

I popped up the green layer with dimensional adhesive and put it on a kraft card base. I hadn't actually planned to do that, but the folded card base was on my desk, unused and neglected, so I used it. :)

I think you should play along with Shopping Our Stash this week, if only so you can think about being outside without having to BE outside, especially if you have all this blowy, drifty snow we're having here in Ohio. Brrr.

Thanks for stopping by!

Products used: Hero Arts Tree, Birds  and Messages stamp set, SU Garden Green card stock, dotted scrap paper, and the following:

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OCC: Stenciled - Day 4 Homework

Oh, what a day, what a world! I'm going to subtitle this post one of the following (take your pick):

1. When "more" is too much.
2. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
3. Taking one for the team.

Yeah, it was one of those days.

I've been working on my homework for Day 4 of the Stenciled Online Card Class, and let's just say this card went in a totally different direction from my original idea.

First, here's the card, then I'll explain the long string of oopses and "I did NOT mean to do that"s:

I had originally made three DIY stencils by cutting the large and two small flames out of some chipboard. I'd intended to have FIRE coming out of that guitar! heh I applied the embossing paste and three colors of embossing powder, then left the room to allow the embossing paste to dry. I didn't want it to bubble up when I heated it.

... tick tock ... I went back later to heat up the embossing powder, and the embossing paste bubbled! I decided to embrace my situation and made sure all three bubbled! HA! I'll show 'em.

Then I placed the guitar on the card front and realized I couldn't use all three flames if I wanted it to be an A2 card, so I had to cut out the larger flame and just use that one. This was okay, since it let me place it where I wanted it. Flexibility with a card layout is a good thing.

Next we'll talk about that guitar:

Please appreciate this photo, as the guitar is the only part of this card I actually like. It all started when I went looking for my wood sheets and they are missing! Or maybe not unpacked. Or put away somewhere safe. After about 15 minutes of muttering I did find a pack of A Muse woodgrain-print card stock, so I used that instead. I die-cut the guitar from both the woodgrain card stock and a piece of white chipboard (it was out) to use as an additional layer for thickness.

Next trauma: See that piece of embossed triangle thing? When you emboss something in multiple colors (in this case, the flame), you can spend all day applying one color at a time and saving the extra back in the bottle, or just use a little bit (use a straw to apply it, or as in my world: a piece of rolled-up computer paper), and then when you tap it all off, you have a row of multiple colors of embossing powders. I took the opportunity to ink up my Tiny Flags background with Versamark and I dumped the mixed-up embossing powders over it. A two-fer! :)

There was so much WHITE on the right side of the card, I actually used part of that embossed piece to fill it in -- hey, the colors were right. Then, since the guitar now sat on top of the Tiny Flags piece, it got lost, so I needed to die-cut a black guitar to use as a shadow behind the woodgrain one for contrast. Then I cut 4 more black guitars to make the thing really thick!

Here's some more detail, and I'll continue with my tales of woe:

The front of the guitar was boring, so I die-cut that black piece you see, but it was white to start with. I pushed it into my Memento Luxe Black ink and clear-embossed it. I had to hold it in one of the openings with tweezers, and then it stuck to the tweezers. My tweezers now have black tips.

The sentiment: I actually did intend to use this sentiment, but I didn't intend to stamp it too close to the left edge of the white piece. I went ahead and embossed it, then I had to get creative, so I put the white layer at an angle on a black card and trimmed off the overhang.

I was still not feeling the love, so I stamped and embossed some tiny stars, and also added thin strips of red card stock around the white layer. As I trimmed the red pieces, I cut into the spine of the card, so it now shows white through the black.

I called it a day.

I may not try heat-embossing on top of embossing paste again. I think I'll stick with coloring the paste for now. Hmmm, I wonder ... nah, maybe another time.

Thanks for stopping by!

Products used: Sizzix chipboard sheets, A Muse woodgrain card stock, Slice spatula, vat of clear embossing powder, misc red card stock, SU embossing powders (Tangerine Tango, Melon Mambo and Cherry Cobbler), and the following:

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OCC: Stenciled - Day 3 Homework

In today's Stenciled Online Card Class we learned about different ways to use embossing pastes and other similar media. I've kinda played with these before, but it was fun to get them out again. First up is a card similar to an earlier one I've made:

The sentiment covers an unfortunate schmear of the Ferro paste. Also, I was going to put the dino dude on the stones, but I thought he looked better up on top.

I self-challenged myself to only partially cover the stencil I was using, and this is what it looked like just before I removed the stencil:

That pile of goop in the bottom right of my work area is the dried Ferro I pulled out of the top of the jar. I seem to be missing the plastic inside top piece, so it's dried out a bit. :(

Where was I ... Oh, in hindsight, if I'd masked the part of the stencil I didn't want to use, this would have been easier. Sigh.

Speaking of which, here is another perfect example of why one should mask and not try to wing it:

I wanted to only partially cover this one with embossing paste, but without masking I made quite a mess around the edges. Shoulda masked, and next time I will.

However, I love the two colors here! I colored my embossing paste with Peacock Feathers reinker. I've colored it in previous attempts with Gelatos, but I think the reinkers are much easier. I mixed up way too much, and ended up using it on three different papers for later experimentation:

Here you can see I've mixed up the paste & reinker on a large acrylic block. I have two already-pasted pieces drying on the upper left corner of my desk, and I'm working on #3. And yes, this is an amazingly large work area I have here, not the usual 6x6 spot. I'm trying to keep it this way and not stack things up like I used to do. Let's see how long that lasts.

Oh, for my stencil here I've die-cut a Lil' Inker plate out of some Hero Arts white card stock. I used it three times with no problems. If you don't have stencils, die-cutting is the next best thing! Just make your own. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Products used: Paper Smooches Dinos 1 Dies, Slice spatula, Hero Arts Ocean Tsumugi note cards, Lil' Inker Cover Up Leaf die, card-stock-weight vellum, mini glue dots, vat of clear embossing powder, and the following: 

InLinkz.com