It's play day!

The last day of class over at Stretch Your Stamps 2 is a play day.  What's better than a play day in class?  I took out Rounded diamonds, the graphic stamp set from Avery Elle and Simply Fabulous Sayings from My Favorite Things to play.

I didn't have a plan for the card.  It's play day!  I'm just going to play.   Here's what I came up with:

I first cut out an A2 size panel for stamping.  Originally there was a row of red "fans" on top but it was trimmed off because I had to put the sentiment on the card base.  Have I convinced you that clear stamps make it really easy to line up images?  I don't have steady hands but I still managed to line them up fine.  Woo hoo~

I wanted to use the word "Amazing" from the Simply Fabulous Sayings then I thought I'd say "Have an Amazing day".  "Have an" comes from a retired Close to My Heart set, then the word "day" comes from the Winnie & Walter set.  Mixing and matching the words does stretch the use of our stamps.  Again, thanks to clear stamps I can first see whether they fit on my card and play with them to determine the placement of each words.  It's not difficult to line them up either. :)

I'm linking up my card to the following:
Fan-tastic Tuesday - Anything Goes
Sweet Stamps - Anything Goes
Through the Craft Room Door - Anything Goes
Top Tip Tuesday - Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Challenge - Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by and have an AMAZING day!

Graphic stamps again

To make up for the bad picture for my post earlier today, I'm sharing another card that made use of geometric shapes and blue and green:

I'm linking up my card to
Crafting at the Weekend - Anything Goes
Crafty Calendar - Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by!

Background stamp

Early this year, I got this Hero Arts background stamp with a million geometric tiny flags.  I liked it so much that I've also bought the triangle background dies.  I have not really used them much but after taking the classes at Stretch Your Stamps 2 I'm going to play with the background stamp!

This is the card I made using the background stamp:

Sorry for the quality of the picture.  I took it at night and the lighting just wasn't right.

I stamped the background stamp twice, one in blue and one in green (as I wanted to play along the Just Us Girls Challenge!).  Then I cut out triangles of different sizes and placed them randomly on the card.  I think it is quite a cool masculine card idea due to the geometric shapes, simplicity and color combination.  The two full panels are enough to make more than one card.  I guess I'll make the other card a Thank You card.  How I like that I can kill two birds with one stone!

I'm linking up my card to the following:
Just Us Girls Challenge - Blue, Green and neutrals

The Squirrel and The Fox - Anything Goes
Stamping Sensations - Anything Goes
Addicted to CAS - Geometric

Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday Wishes

My computer was "sick".  And you know how inconvenient it can be.

About two months ago my phone was "sick" and I had to restore it to factory settings in order to turn it back on.  Sadly most of my data stored were gone.  With my computer I am much better at backing up.  I didn't lose any of the files but I was just waiting impatiently until it had restore to the settings that it can fully function.

Phew.  Finally got it working again. 

I would love to craft but it took me quite a bit of time to click "OK", "proceed" to install the softwares but nonetheless I have a lovely birthday card to share:

I still have some CTMH Lucy paper left and I decided to make a background for my card above.  This card was based on the sketch from Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge:

I'm also linking up the card to
613 Create - Anything Goes
Amusing Challenge - die cuts

Thanks for stopping by!

Bright Birthday Card

I sent this bright birthday card out for my friend's early July birthday and she loved it!  I thought I would make another birthday card using the same color combo!

Boy I have got the Altenew Hennah Elements stamp set for a long time but they still haven't seen any ink.  This will be a good opportunity!  At Stretch Your Stamps 2 one of the topics is outline stamps.  Here what we do is basically absorb or dilute the distress ink inside the white embossed image so the color is less intense than the background.  This is such a cool technique!

I'm linking up my card to:
Seize the Birthday - Anything Goes birthday
Little Red Wagon - Happy Birthday
Card Mania - Birthday Party
Artistic Inspirations - Anything Goes
Stamp and Create - Anything Goes
Through the Purple Haze - Anything Goes
The Corrosive Challenge - Birthdays

Thanks for stopping by!

Merry Christmas

Let's take a break from graphic stamps and go back to one of my favorite types of cards - Christmas cards!

At Stretch Your Stamps 2 we were shown some creative ways to use alphabet stamps.  I pulled out one that I haven't used for a while (interestingly this set was bought around Christmas time last year!) and wanted to play with it.

I did some stamping and some STITCHING!  Yep, stitching!

I haven't done stitching for the longest time and I think it would be nice to take a picture to capture part of the process:

The process is quite simple.  I first stamped the letters from Lawn Fawn Quinn's Capital ABCs on white cardstock, then I used the Tim Holtz tool to punch holes along the stamped image.  I used DMC floss to stitch on the letters using back stitching.

After making this white panel I stamped the snowflakes in grey on the grey card case.  The tone on tone effect remains one of my favorites for backgrounds!  I added a strip of patterned paper, and an earmuff onto the "M" to finish off the card.

This is a very special card as I have not done stitching on cards for a very long time.  Will it be so special that I won't be willing to part with it when Christmas comes?  We'll wait and see.

My card is linking up to the following:
Addicted to Stamps - Holiday
Kraftin Kimmie - Anything Goes
Creative Moments - Anything Goes
Stamps and fun - Christmas in Summer
Amusing Challenge - Christmas

Thanks for stopping by!

Third card with Graphic stamps

I hope you are not bored by the series of Thank You cards I made using graphic stamps.  I'm sharing one more today:

I'm sorry that the quality of the picture is not that great.  I took the picture using a bird's view angle and even though it looks fine on the screen, it does not look nearly as good on the blog post. :(  

Can you tell where the graphic stamp was used?  It's an outline diamond shape that I've stamped repeatedly using teal and green (CTMH Lagoon and Pear):

The picture above should give you a better idea of how the stamping was done, but boy, the glue was not even dry when I took this picture.  My profound apology about the low quality of picture again!

I have never been a big fan of graphic stamps but Stretch Your Stamps 2 does give us some great ideas!  Isn't the repeatedly stamped diamond shape a good disguise for some patterned paper?

It's my first time using this new "Thanks" die from Impression Obsession and I like it a lot!  Sticking the itty bitty pieces back to the negative space is not easy but the font and the size of it make it great for cards!

I'm linking my card to the following:

Crafting from the Heart - Anything Goes

Crafty Sentiments - Anything Goes

Through the Craft Room Door - Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by!