n*Studio | Stampendous Summer Hop

16 June 201612 May 2017 | Marsha.

Hi there! Welcome to the Nathalie Kalbach and Friends Summer Hop!

If you would like to start at the beginning of this hop, then please check out the Stampendous Blog. They’ve started hopping on Monday, so there is loads to discover there!

I’m sharing this iconesque Fashion Dame today:

Here’s how I created her:

1 | Cut a sheet of grey board into four 4″ x 6″ pieces.

2 | Set two cards aside. Cut a rectangle window in one of the remaining cards and a Gothic arch in the other.

3 | Use Archival Ink to stamp the Fashion Dame and her attire on one of the plain cards. Cut the Fashion Dame pieces out.

4 | Give the Fashion Dame pieces a coat of gesso and the other cards a coat of gold acrylic paint. Leave to dry.

5 | Use the Art Deco Wallpaper Stencil to stencil the background card in turquoise and dark blue. Use embossing ink to stamp a halo with the smallest of the Kaffee Klatch Cling Stamps, sprinkle on some Vintage Jade embossing glitter and heat set the powder with a heat tool.

6 | Take the Gothic window card. Use an old plastic (credit) card to apply gold paint to the card through the stencil that comes with the Elephant Foam and Cling Stamp Set. This will create a nice raised texture. Leave to dry completely.

7 | Take the rectangle window card. Use embossing ink to stamp with one of the stamps of the Fiesta Cling Stamp Set. Sprinkle with Blueberry Cheesecake embossing powder and heat set the powder with a heat tool. Use your finger to apply a bit of pink, blue and gold paint on top of the embossed frame.

8 | Adhere the Gothic frame to the background card and the rectangle frame to the front of the Gothic frame.

9 | Apply colour to the hands and face of the Fashion Dame with Neocolor II’s and a watercolour brush. Use acrylic paint to paint the lips and clothing.

Use one of the Fiesta Cling Stamps to stamp on top of the cardboard pants with embossing ink, sprinkle with Blueberry Cheesecake embossing powder and heat set to create the patterned pants. Stamp over it once more with the pants stamp and Archival Ink.

Stamp and emboss the jacket with embossing ink and Mint Macaroon embossing powder. Add black dots with a Posca marker.

10 | Adhere the Dame to the icon frame and add small turquoise dots with a Pearl Pen.

11 | Leave the card as is, or paint an old frame pink, apply gold stencilling with the Art Deco Wallpaper Stencil and adhere the Fashion Dame icon to the front of the frame.

For more inspiration, featuring Nathalie’s fabulous stamp sets check out all the wonderful projects in this Summer Hop!

Here are the links to the other designers participating in the hop today:

Stampendous Blog

Rae Missigman

Katy Leitch

Alison Heikkila

Mark Gould

~~Stampendous is kindly giving away three prize packages of Nat’s foam stamp sets. So don’t forget to comment for a chance to win and be sure to check out the Stampendous Blog to find out more!~~ The give-away is closed! Winners are announced here!

Ooooh… and before you leave! My post for the n*Studio Creative Squad is coming up on Tuesday, so be sure to check out Nathalie’s blog next week to see the spin off project I created with these leftover pieces:

Enjoy your day!

Supplies:

n*Studio products:
Fashion Dame Cling Rubber Stamp Set
Kaffee Klatsch Cling Rubber Stamp Set
Fiesta Cling Rubber Stamp Set
Art Deco Wallpaper Stencil
Batik Stencil

I also used the stencils that come with the
– Elephant Foam Stamp, Cling Rubber, and Stencil Set
– Urban Scribble Foam Stamp, Cling Rubber, and Stencil Set
– Mish Mesh Cling Rubber Stamp Set

Other:
Grey board
Vellum
Acrylic paint (Talens Amsterdam: Deep Gold, Lamp Black, Phthalo Blue, Turquoise Green, Quinacridone Rose)
Gesso (Liquitex)
Watersoluble crayons (Caran d’Ache Neocolor II: Apricot, Pink)
Pearl Pen (Viva Decor: Turquoise)
Permanent ink (Ranger Archival Ink: Jet Black)
Embossing ink (Tsukineko VersaMark)
Embossing powder (Wow!: Blueberry Cheesecake, Mint Macaroon, Vintage Jade)
Paint markers (Uni Posca: Black, Pink, White)
Sewing machine + thread
Cosmetic sponge
Old plastic gift card

Elizabeth Craft Designs | Pebbles Stained Glass Hearts Card

24 May 201616 June 2016 | Marsha.

Hi there! I’m over on the Elizabeth Craft Designs blog today, sharing this card inspired by a couple of pretty stained glass windows!

Creating this card was a bit like solving a jigsaw puzzle, so if you like to puzzle, then you’ll love creating this card!

Here are the steps to create it:

1. Back one piece of Rich Black Soft Finish Cardstock with Clear Double Sided Adhesive. Use it to die-cut two outlines with the Pebbles die.

2. Cut a rectangle of 4 x 5.25 inch Rich Black Soft Finish Cardstock. Adhere the Pebbles outlines to the card.

I ‘found’ two hearts in the die-cut. I made sure those two hearts would take centre stage and then I filled the rest of the card with random parts of the Pebbles outline.

3. Back several different colours of Shimmer Sheetz with Clear Double Sided Adhesive. I chose green, blue, yellow, silver and two shades of red for my card.

This project is perfect for using up Shimmer Sheetz scraps!

Die-cut the Shimmer Sheetz with the Pebbles die. You need to use the Metal Adaptor Plate or a Precision Base Plate to die-cut through Shimmer Sheetz.

4. Piece the ‘stained glass’ together. Start by filling the ‘hearts’ with red shades and then fill the rest of the Pebbles outlines alternating colours.

5. Ink the edges of the Pebbles outlines and the edges of the card with Black Soot Distress Ink. This makes the black even deeper, hides any visible white edges and it makes the Shimmer Sheetz stand out more.

After inking, carefully wipe any excess ink off the Shimmer Sheetz with a soft cloth.

6. Take the 3.75 x 5 inch Fitted Rectangle and die-cut the stained glass card into a neat and tidy rectangle.

7. Die-cut the slightly bigger 4 x 5,25 inch Stitched Rectangle out of Rich Black Soft Finish Cardstock and ink the edges with Black Soot Distress Ink.

Adhere the stained glass card on top of the Stitched Rectangle card with Clear Double Sided Adhesive Tape and then adhere them to a 4.12 x 5.5 inch folded note card, also cut from a sheet of Rich Black Soft Finish Cardstock.

I love how this card turned out. The supershiny Shimmer Sheetz really looks stunning against the black velvet texture of the cardstock.

What figures can you find in the Pebbles die? My husband told me he could see a cat!

Happy crafting!

Supplies:

Elizabeth Craft Designs:
Fitted Rectangles
Stitched Rectangles
Pebbles
Shimmer Sheetz
Soft Finish Cardstock, Rich Black
Cuttlebug and Big Shot Metal Adaptor Plate
Clear Double Sided Adhesive Tape – 3mm
Clear Double Sided Adhesive Tape – 64mm

Other:
Black Soot Distress Ink (Ranger)
Ink blending tool
Craft mat

Elizabeth Craft Designs | Delftware Inspired Cards

26 April 201620 May 2016 | Marsha.

Hi there! I’m over on the Elizabeth Craft Designs Blog today, sharing some cards that are inspired by Delft Blue tiles!

My mom and I visited the Dutch city Delft recently. And when you visit Delft, you can’t escape Delftware. It’s everywhere!

So when I got home, I thought it would be fun to see if I could create a couple of Delftware style cards.

Here are the steps to create these cards:

1 | Cut 12 x 12 inch sheets of Dove Gray Soft Finish Cardstock to 5.5 x 11 inch and fold them into 5.5 x 5.5 inch double note cards.

2 | Take the largest square (5.25 inch) from the Stitched Squares die-set and use it to die-cut as many ’tiles’ out of White Soft Finish Cardstock as you want to make cards.

3 | Choose a dark and a light shade of blue cardstock. I used True Blue and Whisper Blue Soft Finish Cardstock for my cards.

Back the cardstock with Clear Double-Sided Adhesive before you die-cut several frames out of them with the square and round Fitted Frames dies.

Don’t throw away any of the cut-out parts just yet!

4 | Use the small and large Shells die-sets to cut the solid shapes out of the same light blue cardstock. Cut the overlay shapes out of the dark blue cardstock.

Be sure to save the inside parts of the overlay shapes too.

5 | Assemble your ’tiles’.

I adhered the Fitted Frames onto the white cardstock squares first and then I played around with the rest of the shapes.

I adhered the True Blue Shells overlays to the Whisper Blue solid shapes in a whimsical way, to create a painterly look. I used foam tape to adhere these to the card.

Use the negative shapes and dots you saved as little paint strokes to fill in the gaps.

The corner ornaments for this card were created with the negative cut-outs of the overlay that comes with the Tags & More 1 Lace die-set.

6 | Adhere the Delftware ’tile’ to the Dove Gray note card.

I worked on all three cards at the same time. I just die-cut a whole bunch of frames and shells and went on from there. I still have a lot of frames left that I will keep for another project!

I really like the tone on tone look of these cards and you don’t have to limit yourself to (Delft) blue tones either! Just change the colour and the dies you use and you can create a whole other look!

Happy crafting!

Supplies:

Elizabeth Craft Designs:
Shells Small
Shells Large
Lighthouse
Stitched Squares
Fitted Frames 5 Lace Circles
Fitted Frames 4 Curvy Squares
Fitted Frames 2 Lace Squares
Tags & More 1 Lace
Soft Finish Cardstock, White
Soft Finish Cardstock, Whisper Blue
Soft Finish Cardstock, True Blue
Soft Finish Cardstock, Dove Gray
Clear Double Sided Adhesive Tape – 3mm
Clear Double Sided Adhesive Tape – 64mm

Other:
Foam tape

Elizabeth Craft Designs | Meet Me At The Lighthouse Card

12 April 201613 May 2017 | Marsha.

Hi there! I’m over on the Elizabeth Craft Designs Blog today sharing this sunny and shimmery sea-side card!

Although the sun is barely out today and the trees are only slowly turning green here in the Netherlands, I’m already thinking of summer and about spending time at the beach!

Here are the steps to create the card:

1 | Choose a Shimmer Sheetz colour for every element on your card. Back the Shimmer Sheetz with Clear Double-Sided Adhesive Tape.

2 | Die-cut the lighthouse, clouds and sun from the adhesive backed Shimmer Sheetz. Use a Metal Adaptor Plate to die-cut the lighthouse overlay. My die-cut machine had no trouble cutting the solid lighthouse, the sun and the clouds without using the plate, but I did need it for the intricate lighthouse overlay.

3 | Assemble the lighthouse and the sun.

4 | Use the chain with the diamond shapes from the Jewels 1 die-set to die-cut a cloud edge on a strip of Shimmer Sheetz. Use the twine from the Ribbons 1 die-set to die-cut an edge to create a strip of Shimmer Sheetz that will become the sea.

Save the die-cut chain and twine for another project!

5 | Emboss all the cloud pieces with an embossing folder of your choice.

6 | Adhere all the Shimmer Sheetz pieces to a 4″ x 5″ sheet of Shimmer Sheetz. Leave some room at the bottom.

Let the clouds and the sun fall off the edge, but don’t cut off the access just yet.

7 | Use a palette knife to fill the bottom of the image with texture paste. Use a small brush to get the texture paste into the small crevices around the lighthouse.

Leave to dry completely. Depending on the thickness of the paste, this can take up to several hours.

8 | Use an alcohol marker to colour in parts of the lighthouse.

9 | Cut and fold a 4.25″ x 5.5″ double note card from half a sheet of 8.5″ x 11″ Soft Finish Cardstock. Adhere the lighthouse image to the note card.

Cut off any Shimmer Sheetz parts that are hanging off the card.

Have a sunny day!

Supplies:

Elizabeth Craft Designs:
Rainbow Sky
Lighthouse
Jewels 1
Ribbons 1
Mini Mosaic
Shimmer Sheetz Sampler
Soft Finish Cardstock 8.5″ X 11″ 270gr /100Lb
Cuttlebug and Big Shot Metal Adaptor Plate (for die-cutting Shimmer Sheetz)
Clear Double-Sided Adhesive Tape – 64mm

Other:
Finnabair Art Extravagance Texture Paste – White Sand
Palette knife
Brush
Letraset ProMarkers (now called Winsor & Newton ProMarkers)

Elizabeth Craft Designs | Happy Easter Eggs Card

22 March 201612 April 2016 | Marsha.

Hi there! I’m over on the Elizabeth Craft Designs blog today, sharing this clean and simple Easter Eggs card!

Have you heard? The new coloured Elizabeth Craft Designs Soft Finish Cardstock has arrived and… it’s so, so beautiful!!!

I had to create something with it right away, otherwise I might hoard it and I’ll end up only petting it every once in a while.

There are so many things I love about this cardstock, but to name just one: it has one coloured and one white side. This means you can do fun things with it, like using the coloured side to cast colourful shadows on a white card!

Steps to create this card:

1 | Precut a 4 x 6 inch double card from a sheet of 12 x 12 inch coloured Soft Finish Cardstock and a single card slightly smaller than 4 x 6 inches from white Soft Finish Cardstock.

2 | Select 5 different colours of Soft Finish Cardstock. Use the smallest egg from the Easter Eggs set to die-cut 5 different coloured eggs, placing the tiny heart from the Hot Air Balloons set inside the egg die.

3 | Take the white single card and hand letter your sentiment onto it with a black fineliner. Or you can use letter dies, alphabet stamps or a sentiment stamp and black ink!

4 | Add foam tape or foam dots to the coloured side of the Soft Finish Cardstock eggs. I recommend using a foam tape that’s at least 1/8 inch thick.

5 | Remove the backing from the foam tape and adhere the eggs above the sentiment on the white card.

6 | Machine stitch a border around the white card. Secure any loose threads with tape to the back of the card.

7 | Adhere the white card to the front of the coloured double card using strips of Clear Double-Sided Adhesive Tape.

You can adapt this idea and use it on gift tags, scrapbook pages and cards for any occasion. Just change the dies and the sentiment and you’re good to go!

I can’t wait to see what you create with the new coloured Soft Finish Cardstock!

Happy crafting!

Supplies:

Elizabeth Craft Designs:
Easter Eggs
Hot Air Balloons
Soft Finish Cardstock – White
Soft Finish Cardstock – Bluebelle
Soft Finish Cardstock – Spring Green
Soft Finish Cardstock – Sunflower
Soft Finish Cardstock – Bright Orange
Soft Finish Cardstock – Rosebud
Soft Finish Cardstock – Perfect Pink
Soft Finish Cardstock – Lavender
Clear Double Sided Adhesive Tape – 6mm

Other:
Foam tape (minimum thickness 1/8 inch)
Sewing thread
Black fineliner (UniPin 0.3 mm)

Elizabeth Craft Designs | Let’s Go Fly a Kite Gelli Printed Cards

23 February 201613 May 2017 | Marsha.

Hi there! I’m over on the Elizabeth Craft Designs Blog today, where I’m sharing these cards that I’ve created with my trusty Gelli Plate!

Have you ever wondered how to use mono prints in card making? Then this blog post is for you! I’m going to show you how to create a beautiful flat image that you can then frame and adhere to a card!

Steps to create the mono print:
1 | Create a couple of masks and stencils using the Joset Designs Kites and Rainbow Sky die-sets to die-cut the shapes out of transparencies.

2 | Cut a couple of sheets of paper down to about 6 x 6 inches (my paper was A5 size), choose a couple of paint colours and set up your 6 x 6 inch Gelli Plate.

3 | Decide which colour you want your kite to be. Brayer this paint colour onto your gelli plate, layer the stencil with just the outline of the kite on top and pull a print. Clean the Gelli Plate.

4 | Brayer a light yellow paint onto the plate, layer the stencil with the sun rays on top and pull a print.

5 | Brayer a darker yellow paint onto the plate, layer the stencil with the circle part of the sun on top (making sure it’s lined up with the rays on the paper) and pull a print. Clean the Gelli Plate.

6 | Make sure that all the paint on your print is dry. Now mask off the sun and the kite by adding a little bit of removable adhesive to the masks and adhering them to the print.

7 | Cover the top 2/3 of the Gelli Plate with a sky blue paint and the bottom 1/3 with a grass green paint. Pull a print. Clean the Gelli Plate.

8 | Remove the sun ray mask from your print, but keep the kite mask in place. Brayer white paint onto the Gelli Plate, layer a cloud stencil on top and pull a print. Clean the Gelli Plate.

9 | Remove the kite mask and any adhesive residue. Let the print dry.

10 | Mask off the print with the stencil with the kite outline and place one of the kite overlays in the kite opening. Stencil some contrasting paint colour onto the printed kite by dabbing it on with a cosmetic sponge. Let the paint dry.

11 | Add doodles to the print with gel pens.

Of course I made a video so you can see exactly how I did it:

Steps to create the cards:
1 | Decide on a card size. Cut a sheet of white cardstock slightly smaller than the card size.

2 | Use the Stitched Oval or Stitched Rectangle die-set to die-cut a window in the white card.

3 | Take another piece of white cardstock and use the Stitched Oval or Stitched Rectangle die-set to die-cut a stitched frame to fit around the window in the white card.

4 | Adhere the frame to the window.

5 | Cut the mono print to size and adhere it behind the window.

6 | Adhere the window with the mono print to a folded card with foam tape.

Have fun mono printing!

Do share your cards in the Elizabeth Craft Designs Family Facebook Group. We love to see them!

Supplies:

Elizabeth Craft Designs:
1113 Stitches Ovals
1120 Stitched Rectangles
1151 Rainbow Sky
1152 Kites
Clear Double-Sided Adhesive Tape
Soft Finish Cardstock (12″ x 12″ Colors coming soon)

Other:
Transparencies
Gelli Plate (Gelli Arts 6 x 6 inches)
Acrylic paint (Liquitex)
Repositionable adhesive (Scrapbook Adhesives)
Brayer
Cosmetic sponge
Gel pens
Foam tape

Elizabeth Craft Designs | Festive Leaves and Berry Branch Gift Tags

8 December 201513 May 2017 | Marsha.

Busy season has kicked in, so I’m on the look-out for easy to do handmade projects, that take minimal effort.

Today I’m sharing a minimal but stylish gift tag idea over on the Elizabeth Craft Designs Blog.

I was looking at a magazine and saw these beautiful gift tags with fresh greenery attached to them. I loved the idea, it’s easy to do, but you can’t really prepare this in advance, as the fresh leaves and berries won’t keep until the holidays.

Unless… you make them out of paper!

The individual steps for these tags hardly take any time, so I think this is an excellent project you can do one step at a time, whenever you have a spare moment!

Here are the steps to create the tags:

1 | Die-cut as many leaves and (berry) branches as you think you’ll need out of watercolour paper.

2 | Colour the leaves and branches with watercolours. Leave the watercoloured die-cuts to dry completely.

Don’t have time to wait for paint to dry? Replace the watercolours with a colouring medium that is instantly dry, like alcohol markers, brush tip pens or coloured pencils!

3 | Die-cut as many tags as you think you’ll need out of your favourite cardstock.

4 | Add Glossy Accents and/or Puffy Paint to the berries. Leave to dry completely.

Don’t have time to wait for the accents to dry? Replace them with Glitter Dots or self-adhesive crystals. Or… just skip this step!

5 | Adhere the branches and leaves to the tags with small strips of washi tape.

6 | Add some twine to the tags and use the tags to decorate your gifts or your home!

Happy crafting!

SUPPLIES:

Elizabeth Craft Designs:
1074 Leaf & Berry Branches
1033 Leafy Branch
958 Tags & More 5 – Sunburst
758 Berry Branch
703 Triple Leaf Set

Other:
Watercolours (Winsor and Newton)
Bakers twine
Glossy Accents (Ranger)
Puffy Paint White (Tulip)

Elizabeth Craft Designs | Ways with… Shimmer Sheetz

30 October 20151 December 2015 | Marsha.

Need fresh ideas for handmade gifts and gift tags?

There is a new Designer Challenge up on the Elizabeth Craft Designs blog today and this time the team has rounded up a couple of crafty ideas just for you!

All ideas feature glamorous, shiny Shimmer Sheetz and I used it to create this mosaic photo frame:

To create something similar:

Cut one inch strips of Shimmer Sheetz.
Adhere them to Transparent Double Sided Tape and cut the strips into 1 x 1 inch tiles.
Adhere the tiles to a photo frame in a (random) mosaic pattern.

Shimmer Sheetz is made of Mylar and comes in loads of beautiful iridescent and metallic colours. It’s acid-free, so you can safely use it on scrapbook pages and paper projects. It’s also garment quality (colourfast and washable), which means you can use it for clothing and quilts too!

Another cool thing about Shimmer Sheetz is that you can easily alter the look with paints, markers and inks that work on non-porous surfaces (think: alcohol ink).

For more ideas check out the Elizabeth Craft Designs blog!

SUPPLIES:

Elizabeth Craft Designs:
Shimmer Sheetz
Watercolor Paper
E116 Mini Mosaic
958 Tags & More 5 Sunburst
1062 Fitted Frames 2 Lace Squares
1064 Fitted Frames 4 Curvy Squares
508 Transparent Double Sided Adhesive Tape – 64 mm

Other:
Photo frame
Sewing thread

Elizabeth Craft Designs | Clean and Simple Card using Shimmer Sheetz Scraps

27 October 201513 May 2017 | Marsha.

Hi there! It’s my turn on the Elizabeth Craft Designs Blog again and today I’ve got a clean and simple idea to share with you!

Do you hold on to any scrap of Shimmer Sheetz you can salvage after die-cutting a sheet?

I do! Even the smallest snippets go into a zip lock bag, because I figure that I can always turn them into confetti if I need it.

Earlier this week I had die-cut a couple of hearts, but as I didn’t want to waste a whole sheet of Shimmer Sheetz on each of the tiny hearts I needed, I had cut the Shimmer Sheetz to small squares before I ran them through my die-cut machine.

That’s how I ended up with this pile of scraps:

And instead of adding them to my zip lock bag… I decided to use them right away to create these simple cards with a tiny messy glitter twist:

Steps to create these cards:

1 | Look at your scraps of Shimmer Sheetz. Are there any interesting shapes there that you can use right out of the box/bag?

If not: find a couple of scraps in coordinating colours and die-cut some new shapes out of them. Hearts are always a good idea, but leaf shapes, small flowers and even simple circles are great alternatives.

I was especially interested in the negative space that was left in the Shimmer Sheetz scraps, but you can use both the positive and the negative of the scraps. Just use whatever appeals to you most!

2 | Cut a sheet of Soft Finish Cardstock to 4 x 5.25 inches.

3 | Take some liquid adhesive and flick it on your card with a brush.

I chose Matte Medium for my glue because it’s already liquid and I know it dries clear. If your adhesive is too thick to create spatters, dilute it with a bit of water.

4 | Tap Silk Microfine Glitter on the glue spatters. Leave it to dry completely before removing the excess glitter.

5 | Adhere the Shimmer Sheetz scraps to the card with tiny pieces of Transparent Double Sided Adhesive Tape. Only put tape on the parts you know you will not stitch later on!